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East 100th Street is a truly stunning, black-and-white photographic portrait of East 100th Street of Harlem. These stark, memorable images captured by Bruce Davidson show poverty, survival, individuals, children, and families -- some having fun, some withdrawn into themselves. "What you call a ghetto, I call my home", is an impressive quote spoken to the photographer, and East 100th Street showcases both sides of this remark in an exceptional and unforgettable manner.

I opened the pages with trepidation, my heart beating and colliding with memories long forgotten, whose every scene brought to me the miasma of cooking in the halls, the scent of tar on the melting rooftops in August, and the perpetual noise down in the streets strangely mixed with hilarity and shouting; the sounds for one born here was as uplifting as the sounds of crickets to a farmer in his fields at night. But I do have issues with the book. The pictures therein were obviously taken when 100th street was in its last stage of demise. The book should have included the early '60's that would have shown an electrifying explosion of people milling in the streets, firescapes, stoops, cars, doorways; singing doo-wops beneath the lampost; or stickball played in the street. But it sadly lacked that. The candy stores were gone, the bodegas boarded up, my own building (323) boarded with tin. East 100th Street was the most nefarious neighborhood in all of East Harlem, and too, the most frightening place for policemen to enter. But for all its disadvantages, it was by far, the most creative street known. Is it no wonder why it attracted the likes of Elenor Roosevelt, Robert F. Kennedy, Marlon Brando, Miles Davis, Burt Lancaster, Billy Holiday, Mark Lane, and a host of others? Is it any wonder why it haunted me so to write a true novel based on it? (Just now complete). But all in all the photos are real and sadly true.