NYC NOW - How One Photographer Archived NYC's Graffiti & Street Culture

Episode Date: April 24, 2026

WNYC Arts & Culture Editor Matthew Schnipper is back with a rundown of what's worth your train swipes this week. We cover the Queens Night Market's last year of $6 food before prices go up, a Martha Cooper retrospective at the Bronx Documentary Center celebrating one of graffiti's earliest documenters, and whether the Lower East Side's booming vintage shops can sustain the hype. Plus: Mayor Mamdani attempts a Mario Kart metaphor, pioneer trans DJ Lena Bradford celebrates 3 decades of DJing, and a Wallace Shawn mini retrospective at Metrograph. -Got any questions, comments or story ideas? Send us a message at [e-mail]

From WNYC, this is NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. The Queens Night Market, New York City's Vintage District, and the photographer behind the graffiti Bible is celebrated at the Bronx Documentary Center. That's all ahead on this edition of the Arts and Culture Check-in. But first, here's what's happening in our area. Mayor Zoramam Dany is creating a new city office tasked with cracking down on deed theft and protecting longtime homeowners from scams.

Mamdani says real estate investors frequently target valuable properties in predominantly black neighborhoods in central Brooklyn and Southeast Queens. Deed theft not only disproportionately robs black and brown New Yorkers of their homes. It also robs them of the stability that a home provides. He says the office will help investigate deed theft claims and conduct outreach to warn residents about fraud. Data shows the problem is on the rise. The attorney general received more than five.

500 complaints of deed theft last year, that's up from around 150 two years earlier. The Trump administration says it needs to convert a New Jersey warehouse into an immigration detention center in order to handle an influx of immigration cases from New York City. So the administration has asked a federal judge to allow it to begin work on the facility. That's according to a new court filing in a lawsuit by state and local officials to halt the project. Last month, New Jersey's attorney general sued the Trump administration. administration claiming it violated federal statutes by purchasing the warehouse without conducting an environmental review. The next court hearing is scheduled for May 12th. A 27-foot-tall sandstone

sculpture of the Buddha is now up on the high line. Artist Twan Andrew Vwin says the peace-paced homage to the Bamian Buddhas of Afghanistan. Those were two statues carved out of a mountain in the sixth century that were destroyed by the Taliban 25 years ago. The sculpture replaces the last major public art installation on the high line, a massive metal pigeon called dinosaur. We got to take a quick break, but when we return, WNYC's Matthew Schnipper joins me for another edition of the Arts and Culture Check-in. Stay close. Welcome back to another edition of our bi-weekly arts and culture check-in. It's a look at what's been coming across the Arts and Culture Desk here at WMYC and our new site,

Gothamist, and joining me to walk and talk through this. is Matthew Schnipper, our Arts and Culture Editor. Hey, Matt. Hi, can you hear my chair creaking? What an entrance. Great. He's here. Very creaky. What was up with that? I don't know. Oh, I don't like that. We've got to get some WD40. Please give now to public radio, WMYC.org slash donate. WD40.org.

All right. So, Matt, what's coming out for your desk this week? There's a lot going on this week in the last couple weeks. Stuff in Queens. The Bronx, Lower Manhattan. Where do you want to start? Come on now. Let's start in Queens. Let's do it.

Queens. So let's start at the Queens Night Market. Yeah. Do you like food today? Love food. Yeah, Night Market has got all kinds of stuff to eat. It is an enormous fest of vendors and you can get. Peruvian Savi and Polish pierogi is Taiwanese popcorn chicken, Persian crispy rice.

I love Savicee. I mean too, actually. Every year I plan to go to the Queens Night Market. and I just never make it, but I think this is going to be the year for me. It's a good year because prices are going up, actually, after this year. Oh, definitely need to go then. Walter Worthman, a reporter on my desk, you know, he talked to the founder, John Wang, and he said the market is keeping its $6 price cap on all food for one more year,

and then they are going to raise that cap next year. Okay, I can afford six bucks. There's more about the Queens Night Market on gothness.com. It is behind the New York Call of Science every Saturday, starting May 2nd through October 25th, starting at 4 p.m. Love Cevice, definitely getting that. But when I make it out there, is there anything else that I should keep an eye out for? I mean, there is an enormous amount of stuff.

I had actually heard they have shark fin sandwiches somebody has got, which sounds great. They have the shrimp and yam fritters that look insane. There's a guava bocadillo. And that is a fried plantain with glauava syrup and cheese inside. It's rich. Everything there is rich food. So I would say, in addition to your $6. per dish, bring an acid.

Okay, I can do that. One each. You know, and I think for our long-time listeners, we've got to find out whether or not they have tuna melts. After that picture you showed me, you know, I'm not into tuna melts. I did DM Genezine recently. I was at a diner in Long Island, actually, and I was like, I'm going to get a tuna melt.

It was really bad. It looks disgusting. And I was pretty bummed. I wanted it to be good. I was excited, and I was like, oh, I got to tell Janay about this. Yeah. I mean, you were the editor on that tuna melt story. There was no mention of Long Island. So lesson. Yeah, this is a purely five boroughs situation. All right. So what else is on your desk?

Man, so, you know, going from Queens to the Bronx, I was really excited we ran a story about the photographer Martha Cooper, who has a retrospective at the Bronx documentary center. So Martha Cooper is basically known as one of the first, if not the first, documenters of the graffiti moment. in New York City. So she grew up in Baltimore, her dad on a camera shop. She spent a lot of time kind of around cameras and became a staff photographer for the New York Post in the late 70s. And basically she just got bewitched by graffiti. I started to do a personal project about kids playing creatively on the Lower East Side. We're in front of some of those pictures right now. And one of the boys showed me his sketchbook with drawings and explained to me that he was practicing to put his name on a wall. And that was the first time I understood what graffiti was.

You know, we actually interviewed her for this piece. Walter, again, a reporter on my desk, went up to the Bronx documentary to talk to Martha, who is in her early 80s, is wearing a airbrushed jean denim jacket with her name on the back. She has got a lot of spunk. So she's, she was great. This exhibit is open for her next couple of months, it looks great. Yeah, Martha Cooper's a living legend. I love that we were able to sit down and chat with her. You know, graffiti is illegal and it's this underground scene, right?

I'm wondering, you know, for people out here doing graffiti, the kids out there doing it, why were they so comfortable with her in the first place? Yeah, it's interesting because, you know, at that point, I mean, she was young, but older than them, you know, a white lady snooping around with the camera. working for a newspaper. It is interesting. We had wondered that same thing, like, how did she end up kind of in the scene? And basically, she would just go and give them prints.

Photography has always been a part of graffiti writing because the photographs are the proof of what you've painted. But I could take better pictures because I had better camera equipment. I mean, the kids were shooting with, like, cardboard cameras, disposable cameras. And so they wanted me to, they wanted the pictures, basically. And they trusted me, you know, because I did come back and I did give them pictures. And I guess they saw that it was pretty cool. It was pretty cool.

It was better than the photos they were taking, I guess. That's dope. So her photos are now an archive of New York City culture. Yeah. I mean, she has several books, you know, which you can definitely check out. And this show, you know, it has her photos not just graffiti, but her photos of street racing. There's breakdancing, early hip-hop shows. tattoos and then a whole bunch of like illegally built casitas.

And I think the cool part about it, it's called streetwise. Love that name. Yes. It's a great name. So I can get some good food this weekend in Queens. I can go learn about New York City underground history in the Bronx. What else, Matt? I would say if you were bobbing around New York City, you could go head to the Lower East Side,

which we have a story about maybe becoming a new vintage district. I felt it coming on. Yeah? I felt it coming on these past two. years for sure. There are a lot of vintage shopping spots on the Lower East Side now. It just happened. Yeah. So we knew there were so many of these different stores and Moore kept opening up. A store from L.A. called Varsity opened up a branch in New York. And one thing we were curious about, is there enough supply and demand to keep all of these shops open? They all sell similar

stuff, a kind of type of 90s-ish designer streetwear type things. Are there that many people that kind of want to get into this very niche type of vintage? And is there enough of this type of vintage which has to be tracked down through estate sales, online, thrift stores, dealers, etc. to actually like make the variety of stores that interesting? Yeah. I often wonder about the authentication process too, you know, when you're when you're shopping vintage and you want to ensure that it is indeed vintage and it is indeed Gucci, like, how are all these things getting authenticated? Sometimes they are and sometimes they aren't. I mean, I think, you know, over time, you end up getting an eye for knowing, okay, this tag does this and, you know, the hem looks like this and in this season, this brand did this. but a lot of it you're going on trust. Yeah, it's possible if you don't know enough you're going to go in there and you're going to buy something.

And if enough of these trendy shops keep opening up, the shopkeep might not know enough to authenticate it. Yeah. I think that is a risk that's built in. I only asked because I was not in the vintage district on the Lower East Side. I was actually in Williamsburg and there were these Gucci loafers that were like $800, $800. $800. And I'm like, Houseway?

That's a lot of money. I mean, you know, there are many things of these shops that cost more than they did at retail when they were new, you know? Yeah. You know, it's not just the quality of the thing, but you're going on like on rarity as well. And that's one thing people should keep in mind if you're heading out to one of these vintage shops, you know, don't go into these shops thinking and expecting thrift store prices. because you will be shocked. Yeah, you'll get sticker shock. This is not a thrift store.

Yeah. Are you a vintage shopper, Matt? I am more of a thrifter. I do wear mostly used older clothing. So I do have an interest in this type of stuff, but not the interest in opening my wallet as much. Yeah. It just depends for me. You know, if it's like an old, old plate, you know, maybe with the gold rim, there are certain things that I'm like, okay, you got, you.

You got a little coin, like my grandma said. You got a little coin. Yeah. There are some things where I will pay. All right. Well, I know you've been keeping up with Mayor Mundani's cultural references. And I have to mention that WMYC actually spoke to the mayor this week about the lessons he's taken in his first 100 days in office. And the lessons that he gained from Mayor Fiorella LaGuardia.

You can listen to that conversation, of course, on our feed. Right now, it's the previous episode. But Matt, when it comes to Mamdani's cultural references, do you have anything for us? I do. Before I say anything about this, let's just listen because I didn't understand any of this. OK.

If you are a Mario Kart fan, government is Yoshi and philanthropy is the golden mushroom. That edge we need to beat Bowser on the Rainbow Road. To belabor this metaphor even further, Bowser is corporate greed in this scenario. This was lost on me, Jenae. He was talking about accepting private donations to fund public programs. What exactly this has to do with Mario Car?

You know, I recognize that he is making an extended metaphor. Same. I mean, I don't know where this came from. You lost me at government as Yoshi. You know, when I saw this, I thought, is this AI, you know, which is the kind of thing that I don't mean that I'm not. joking. It's funny, but I was like, did he say this? And he did say this. And I assume for many people, this did 100% compute. For me, I was like, Yoshi's the turtle guy. I know that.

Philanthropy is the golden mushroom. I think go Yoshi, right? Yeah. Yes. Sure. All right, sure. You know, I'm just going to say Mario and Luigi, according to my niece in a recent film, they live in Brooklyn. They're Brooklyn nights. Yeah. They're Brooklyn nights. You know, I'm realizing actually looking at this, the game is Mario Carp, but Mario isn't a character in his metaphor, right? Listen, you're absolutely right, I think. We need to kind of, we may need to learn about video games and try to explain why he's, he's, he's.

is wrong. If someone knows about video games and has a better metaphor, can they hit us up, please? NYC now at WMYC.org, we are eager to hear from you. Just if you want to tell us a metaphor in general, hit us up. Yeah, yeah. We got time. We're lyrical people, you know? Especially Matt. National Poetry, month. Yeah.

With that in mind, Matt, I just, you know, want to move on because I'm sure there are stories from your desk that we have missed. A Brooklyn musician. Yeah, so Zosha Warpejok plays a Norwegian fiddle called a Hardanger-Demore. What's the difference between a Norwegian fiddle and a regular fiddle? Probably socialized health care, I guess. Now, this fiddle has the regular amount of strings, and then underneath it has.

sort of sub strings, resonant strings. So everything that is being performed also has this kind of echo built into it. So her album is beautiful. She recorded a space in downtown Brooklyn called Issue Project Room. So I would check her out, Z-O-S-H-A is how you spell her first name. Check her out our albums on bandcamp. You know who else? I am excited to check out Lena Bradford, the DJ.

Yes. Lena is cool. So you can still see her at cafeteria. We did an interview with her. Shout out to Richard Juswiak, who did the interview with Lena. She is one of, if not the first trans DJs in New York, who really made a name for herself. And so she played for about 10 years on big parties at Fire Island. She plays in cafeteria in Chelsea every week and just all around town. So we had an interview with her really about kind of how sounds have changed, what has stayed the same. and how you go from sort of being a personality in a club to being behind the decks and how for her really having a big personality is helpful. She learned out to play records and how to mix records kind of after the fact. She was encouraged by Frankie Knuckles to just get up and start being a DJ, which she did. Yeah, worked out great for her. I want to say go to gotthmus.com because the photo that we have of her is maybe my favorite photo that we have run before on this interview.

It's very orange. Everything is color coordinated. Orange is my favorite color. You are going to like this photo. You should check it out. Okay. It's very fun. And there's a Wallace Sean retrospective.

There is. You know, one of the things that's interesting, if you are listening to this and you know who Wallachan is, you're maybe picturing. Maybe you're thinking about my dinner with Andre. Maybe you're thinking about inconceivable from Princess Bride. He didn't fall? Inconceivable. You give you sin the heart.

I don't think of me as a story. What do you think of him is? Maybe you're thinking about the fact that he was Cher Horowitz's teacher in Clueless. Or maybe you're like, who is that guy? And I found it interesting talking about Wallace in our newsroom because some of our younger colleagues were like, I don't know what that guy is. And eventually you show him a picture, they'd be like, that guy. Yeah. But I was like, Wallace Sean, National Treasure, Wallace Sean?

Yeah. But Wallace Sean has a kind of mini retrospective being organized by John Early, the comedian who I also love at Metrograph, playing not just sort of his big, big films, but stuff that he has kind of a small role in, like, clueless running next week. The whole lineup for the festival is on gotthmus.com. Nice. That's WNYC's Arts and Culture editor, Matthew Schnipper. Thanks a lot, man. Thanks always for indulge me, Janke.

Before we go, this week, WNYC observed, take your kid to workday. The little ones checked out a lot around the office, and they shared some life advice. My advice is drive your car every day. My advice is enjoy yourself. My life advice is never let someone push you around, like never feel bad about yourself. My life advice is to don't get stressed out or it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy

and you will have your day go wrong. My life advice is never underestimate the power of words. My life advice is chill out and relax. My life advice is to go outside every day. My life advice is that you should never go swimming in under 5 degrees. I learned from experience. My life advice is don't let anyone hurt or ruin your spark. My life advice is have fun.

My life advice is don't, pineapples and pizza don't go together. Thanks for listening to NYC Now. I'm Jenae Pierre. Have a lovely weekend. See you next time.