Skid Row

These on-the-spot portraits of "the fallen" were taken to reveal the dignity and unexamined humanity of those who were once intrinsic to the urban experience of American cities of the late 1970s. In Charles H. Traub's own words: "It is my hope that these photographs of the tenants of the streets of Uptown Chicago and the Bowery New York serve as a tribute to the grace of the 'down and out.'" And from Tom Huhn's essay in the book: "What a curious thing to look at, and to look for: whatever there is in each of us-by spying what might be found missing in someone else." Indifference and gentrification have displaced those who once inhabited the missions and shelters that nurtured and held them together in a storied bond. While homeless, they were not wayward; they formed a fabled tribe and were known to their neighbors by their names, eccentricities and their plight. Nelson Algren's famous book A Walk on the Wild Side asks why "lost people sometimes develop to greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their lives." Traub's Skid Row confirms this and these inhabitants' part in the central fabric of the city.