“The Curious Ones”

Weegee, [People watching scoreboard of World Series at Yankee Stadium in upper window of Sachs Furniture Company store, New York], October 5, 1943 (14912.1993)

Weegee, [Man watching scoreboard of World Series at Yankee Stadium in upper window of Sachs Furniture Company store, New York], October 5, 1943 (14912.1993)

Weegee, [Man watching scoreboard of World Series at Yankee Stadium in upper window of Sachs Furniture Company store, New York], October 5, 1943 (14913.1993)

Weegee, [Men watching scoreboard of World Series at Yankee Stadium in upper window of Sachs Furniture Company store, New York], October 5, 1943 (14911.1993)

Weegee, [Men watching scoreboard of World Series at Yankee Stadium in upper window of Sachs Furniture Company store, New York], October 5, 1943 (14910.1993)

Weegee, [Men watching scoreboard of World Series at Yankee Stadium in upper window of Sachs Furniture Company store, New York], October 5, 1943 (713.1993)

PM, October 6, 1943, p. 14

The 1943 World Series Gets Under Way…
The Man in the Street
This is how New York’s garment center received the news from Yankee Stadium yesterday afternoon. PM’s photographer took the pictures through a window as the passing crowd watched the scoreboard in the upper window of the Sachs furniture Co. store. Photos by Weegee, PM

Weegee’s photos of curious, studious, serious, and ultimately ecstatic people on the sidewalks of New York kicked off three pages of pictures in PM‘s coverage of the first game of the 1943 World Series. That night the Yankees defeated the St. Louis Cardinals 4 to 2. (Spoiler alert: the Yankees won the series in five games in 1943.) The Sachs Furniture Company was located at 505 Eighth Avenue (ME dalion 3-4600), between 35th and 36th streets. (Perhaps coincidently the Yankees are playing tonight, so if you’re in The City That Never Sleeps, grab your hat and head to 8th and 35th St., maybe a store will display the score.) By 1945, Weegee’s photos of people in the street, looking upward at information about the World Series (October 6, 1943), reports about Mussolini (August 1, 1943), and news of the D-Day landing (June 6, 1944), were printed on the same page spread of the second chapter in Naked City. All of the photos were made in midtown Manhattan (the garment district or Times Square) of pensive people; constituents embroidered in the fabric of daily life in the Naked City.

Weegee, Naked City, 1945 pp. 38-39

The Curious Ones…
These are the men, women, and children on the sidewalks of New York… always rushing by… as if life itself depended on their reaching their destination… but always finding time to stop and look at a fire… murder… a woman about to jump off a ledge… also to look at the latest news flashes on the electric sign on the Times Building in Times Square… the latest baseball results pasted in windows of stores… and to listen to music coming out of phonograph stores.
They always want to know what paper I’m from and if the person is dead. They seem to be disappointment if they see a sign of life as the stretcher with the injured person is carried before them.
The cops have their hands full at fires with the spectators, and have to watch out that they don’t get injured by falling debris… high pressure hose lines breaking, etc…
When they have had their fill of the scene, they disappear as quickly as they came… in a terrific hurry…
Naked City, 1945 p. 34