Photos of passengers of the New York subway of the 70s show what era was before smartphones

The era before the advent of smartphones was a completely different time for passengers of public transport. If you didn’t have a newspaper, book or an interesting conversationalist with you, then you were left alone with your thoughts, and not with an exciting display of the gadget. Photographer Helen Levitt subtly and fascinatingly talks about those simple, technology-free times in his photographs of the late 1970s.

Her black and white photographs are a quiet look at ordinary people who ride in subway cars painted with graffiti. Each of them has their own relationship with this road: loners seem thoughtful and stare blankly into space, other passengers are more comfortable, because they hold the hands of their fellow travelers, while others attract the attention of the whole car in a loud conversation. Levitt’s mastery is so great that it seems like we are also silent participants in each of these scenes.

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