Images of New York: 220 East 42nd Street’s Magnificent Photograph Collection and the Man Behind the Camera

If you work in VNSNY’s new office at 220 East 42nd Street, take a moment to glance up at the columns and walls of your workspace. The chances are good that you’ll be looking at one or more photographs by Richard Rothstein, Vice President of Enterprise Communications. Over 130 of Richard’s images are displayed throughout the new office’s seven floors, with more to be added soon. The photos are all of New York City—its parks, neighborhoods, buildings and waterways, from the northern Bronx to the beaches of Coney Island.

The collection of cityscapes is eye-catching in its variety and richness—a fact that reflects Richard’s own love of the city where he was born and raised. “When I’m looking at an interesting building or street scene through my camera, I’m telling a story,” he says. “Wherever I go in New York City, I watch for what’s beautiful—and it’s never hard to find. This city has anything you could ever want or need. All you have to do is open your eyes and your heart.”

To capture the striking colors, shapes and play of light that define his photos, Richard pays close attention to his surroundings—not only the scene in front of him, but also the time of day, the position of the sun or moon, the quality of the clouds and sky, the humidity level, and other aspects of the weather. “I track the forecast closely, so I can tell when there’s going to be an amazing sunrise over the Hudson,” he says. “When that happens, I’ll grab my camera and take a pre-dawn Uber over to Hoboken, then catch the ferry back to Manhattan.”

It was just such a morning, he adds, that resulted in this cover photo of the 2019 VNSNY Calendar.

The key to a good photo, says Richard, is to concentrate on what’s actually being framed by the camera and the emotion that it conveys. “Most untrained photographers take postcard photos,” he notes. “They get an image of the beautiful thing, but they don’t get a beautiful image.” Instead of photographing an entire iconic New York skyscraper, Richard is more likely to focus on a piece of it that he finds especially interesting. And when people are snapping away at a picturesque sunset, you’ll often find him faced the other way, photographing the sun’s reflection on the sides of nearby buildings.

“I know that I’ve got a photograph I’m going to love if I feel a powerful emotion as I’m taking it,” he says. “That emotion might be joy, or calm, or excitement or inspiration. It can also be humor—or even anger or frustration. I love it when my photos bring out emotional reactions in others, too. It might not always be the reaction I expected…but as long as the photograph elicits some kind of emotional response in the person who’s looking at it, it makes me very happy.”

10 Questions for Richard Rothstein

1) What kind of camera do you use?

A: A Canon EOS 5 Mark III

2) What is your favorite time of day to photograph?

A: Dawn.

3) How did you get so good at capturing New York City in so many different conditions?

A: My Manhattan apartment happens to have one of the most beautiful views in the city, and I take a lot of photographs from its windows. The apartment faces south and east and west, so I get to see the sunrise and the sunset and the changing light throughout the day, as well as every imaginable weather condition, from blizzards to lightning storms to sunny days with puffy clouds. As a result, I’ve become kind of an expert on what circumstances make for a certain color palette.

4) What is your favorite reaction from someone looking at one of your photographs?

A: Tears. Photos can bring up so many powerful emotions that I’ve sometimes seen people cry looking at one of my images. I love that.

5) What is your favorite place in New York City to photograph?

A: It’s a tossup between Coney Island and Central Park, but if pushed, I’d probably say Central Park. It is so beautiful and mysterious and romantic, as well as scary and dangerous and calming and serene. Anything you want, you can find in Central Park—365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

6) Is there any part of New York City that you don’t like photographing?

A: No.

7) What is the most unusual place in New York City that you’ve photographed?

A: One that comes to mind was photographing the Rockaways and Coney Island after Superstorm Sandy in 2012—the huge impact of that storm, and how people were working to recover from it afterwards.

8) Is there an aspect of New York in days gone by that you didn’t photograph, but you wish you had?

A: Absolutely: The neighborhoods and the stoop culture where I grew up in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. I would have loved to photograph all the different ethnic neighborhoods that used to exist there, back in the mid-20th century.

9) What are your favorite photos among those now hanging in the office at 220 East 42nd?

A: There are over 130 up on the walls, so it’s hard to say. I think the answer would depend on my mood and the time of day.

 10) You’ve done the photographs for quite a few VNSNY calendars over the years. Do you have a favorite?

A: The one that was the most enjoyable to do was the calendar that portrayed New York City’s diverse cultures. It was incredibly fun to photograph people from all the city’s different communities—Chinese, Korean, Pakistani, and so on. In terms of the photographs themselves, though, I would say that this year’s calendar featuring views of the Hudson River is probably my favorite.