Never Before Seen Photographs of the Young Andy Warhol

Warhol Behind His Marilyn Print

Warhol Editing Film at The Factory in NYC

Warhol Filming at The Factory with His Assistant, Gerard Malanga

Warhol With All-American Faces

Before They Were Famous: Behind The Lens of William John Kennedy is an extraordinary collection of images by the photographer William John Kennedy, which is currently on exhibition at the new gallery Site/109 in New York City. The collection presents a number of never-before-seen photographs of Andy Warhol and Robert Indiana, among them Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe and Indiana’s LOVE, taken by Mr. Kennedy in the mid-60′s when they were both just emerging American artists.

The fact that these early images of the two iconic American artists happened isn’t necessarily the exciting part. It’s that the amazingly early, naïve portraits of the artists with their own works were created before they were famous. These early images sat untouched for over 50 years, until Kennedy uncovered them within his archives and decided it was time to finally print this project.

Full Circle: Before They Were Famous

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Full Circle: Before They Were Famous

William John Kennedy’s Photographs of Andy Warhol

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William John Kennedy’s Photographs of Andy Warhol

Photo-Gallery: Before He Was Famous: Andy Warhol

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The Grand Luncheonette: Sadly, No Place Left at the Table for 42nd Street Diner

Fred Hakim, last of the old-time Times Square hot-dog vendors, has died at the age of 83. Mr. Hakim’s family owned a hole-in-the-wall hot-dog counter in Times Square, which was the last of its kind when in the 1990s the city began condemning dozens of establishments like it in order to revitalize the area. The Grand Luncheonette was a seven-seat, 250-square-foot piece of Edward Hopper streetscape on West 42nd Street, which Mr. Hakim’s father had opened in 1941 and wryly named the Grand Luncheonette.

The Grand Luncheonette lived on 42nd Street for 58 years, grandly offering its greasy ambiance to the passing crowds in Times Square, proudly wrapped in shining chrome beneath the rotted marquee of the old Selwyn Theater. Mr. Hakim tried to keep the place open as a sort of living museum-like tribute to the golden age of Times Square’s hawkers, strippers and honky-tonks. But New York’s urban planners had other ideas, and after a two-year fight, he finally was evicted on Oct. 19th, 1997.

Writing about the demise of the Grand Luncheonette, a New York Daily News journalist pessimistically concluded: “This is bigger than 42nd Street, bigger even than the Disney Corp. This is about New York being colonized by The Gap and Banana Republic and Starbuck’s and all the rest. If new and improved Times Square is any indication, the standard for Italian cuisine will be the Olive Garden chain.”

Read more about the Grand Luncheonette in The New York Times here.

The nostalgic, touching documentary short film Grand Luncheonette was created by New York-based documentary filmmaker Peter Sillen.

Grand Luncheonette: Sadly, No Place Left at the Table

(Best Viewed in Full-Screen Mode with Scaling Off)

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