Alvin Baltrop: The Piers

A monograph of Alvin Baltrop’s photographs of the clandestine gay culture of Manhattan’s West Side piers in the 70s and 80s.

During that era, the derelict warehouses beneath Manhattan’s West Side piers became a lawless, forgotten part of the city that played host to gay cruising, drug smuggling, prostitution and suicides. While the outside world saw New York as the glamorous playground of Studio 54, Warhol’s gang and the disco era, Baltrop photographed the city’s gritty flipside; his work is an important part of both gay culture and the history of New York itself. This clothbound volume compiles the Piers series in one definitive monograph, a powerful tribute to a long-forgotten world at the city’s dilapidated margins. — Artbook

Harbour is used for cover and title type.