In the spring of 1959, Bruce Davidson met a group of Brooklyn teenagers who called themselves The Jokers. He was twenty-five and they were about sixteen, and he later wrote that he could easily have been taken for one of them. Over the summer of 1959 he became a daily observer of their lives. His photographs were made at drugstore soda fountains and tattoo parlors, at Coney Island, and at late-night basement dance parties in Brooklyn, New York. In time the teenagers allowed him to witness their fear, depression, and anger, and he wrote that he came to feel some of their pain.
Twin Palms Publishers published Brooklyn Gang in November 1998 as a hardcover volume of 100 pages with 71 gravure plates. The publisher lists the book at 10 by 11.5 inches. According to a catalog description, the plates are followed by a short recollection by Davidson and a longer interview with Bengie, a surviving gang member. In his recollection, Davidson writes that staying close to the teenagers uncovered his own feelings of failure, frustration, and rage. The publisher describes the adolescents in the book as exuding a cool sensuality that came by way of the young Brando and Dean.
The publisher presents the book as a photographic elegy for a time when, in retrospect, we all seemed young, and describes the subjects as children of the James Dean generation. Davidson’s own account stresses the access he was granted and the emotional closeness that came with it, rather than a detached survey of the group. Reading the photographs alongside the recollections allows the immediate appearance of youth to meet a later perspective on that experience.
Davidson is credited as the photographer. The publisher notes that he followed a loosely knit gang around Brooklyn during the summer of 1959, capturing private and public moments. The book’s subjects include the Jokers and the places where they spent time: the soda fountain, the tattoo parlor, Coney Island, and the basement dance party. Bengie, a surviving member, contributes an interview. Davidson’s short recollection and the interview together frame the photographs. Their presence invites a reader to consider the distance between a photographed moment and its place in a remembered life.
