WHEN HE STARTED TAKING PICtures around New York City in the late 1940s, Roy DeCarava stepped into the most irresistible role that photography offers: a walker in the city, a camera-equipped descendant of the quick-witted literary strollers that the French called flaneurs. Looking out for the knotty surprises the street has in store, he was like Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris or Harry Callahan in Chicago. What was different for DeCarava was that most of his streets were in Harlem, which made him a roving eye in a part of town that the rest of the world didn't see much of. In...
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