A woman at a phone booth in front of the Guggenheim Museum, photographed by Frank Fournier, 1977.

*Top,* the Riegelmann Boardwalk, in Coney Island, 1977; *above,* cars parked on Clinton Avenue, in Brooklyn, 1977.

*Top,* a woman on Fifth Avenue, 1977; *above,* Christopher Street in the West Village, 1977.

Women under the *Atlas* sculpture, by Lee Lawrie, at Rockefeller Center, 1982.

*Top,* a parade in Times Square, 1980; *above,* Ninth Avenue and 13th Street, in the Meatpacking District, 1977.

A parade on 116th Street in Harlem, 1984.

*Top,* a fire on Clinton Avenue, 1977; *above,* a wedding party outside St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 1978.

*Top,* the R Train moving through Queens, 1977; *above,* a sex worker at 10th Avenue and 38th Street, in the neighborhood now known as Hudson Yards, 1977.

The intersection of Kenmare and Centre Streets, in Lower Manhattan, 1977.

*Top,* children in Brownsville, Brooklyn, 1977; *above,* a street in Prospect Heights, Brooklyn, circa 1970s.

Frank Fournier’s New York

A portfolio of the French photographer’s 1970s Technicolor pictures hearkens back to a city steeped in danger, decay, and unbridled creative freedom

When Frank Fournier moved to New York City, in 1975, it was a radical departure from everything he’d known. He had studied medicine for four years in his native France, but in his late 20s he pivoted. He was going to become a photojournalist.

The city was bankrupt, dirty, and dangerous but also teeming with artistic voices. Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, James Baldwin, and even Grandmaster Flash were meeting downtown, opening galleries, writing, and pioneering new kinds of music.