Photographer William Meyers documents 25 years of NYC life in new book, ‘Civics’

New York City has always been a city for photographers. From Garry Winogrand, to Gordon Parks, to Saul Leiter, to Leonard Freed, the streets of the city have always been fodder for those who take the time to really look at what is going on around them. And politics, social issues, and civil life have always been a part of it.

Photographer William Meyers has followed in this tradition in his new book “Civics” as he works to capture in New York City the everyday acts of civic engagement, public service, and neighborly support that sustain the democratic fabric of not just the city, but the nation as a whole.

The book is structured around seven thematic chapters: “Elections,” “Governance,” “Demonstrations,” “Press,” “Talk,” “Social Capital,” and “Civic Markers.” The photographs capture the full spectrum of engagement, from formal political processes and public service to volunteer work, protests, charitable acts, and neighborhood interactions, revealing the quiet, everyday labor that keeps democracy alive.

Meyers’ interest in civic engagement goes back decades. It began in 1953 when he was in the 9th grade at Classical High School in Providence, Rhode Island.

“Ancient History was one of the courses, and when we got to studying the Greek poleis, I fell in love. I’ve had a lifelong interest in classical Greek culture and history and, from that, in city governance,” Meyers recounted during an interview via email. “I had experiences dealing with government and read much in urbanology. ‘Civics’ is my attempt to show how the city runs and how the inhabitants coexist more or less amicably.”

Meyers’ interest in photography began when he was 10, and he had a darkroom in the house he grew up in. He went on to be a serious amateur photographer while he was in the Navy, while he worked for the Senate in Washington D.C., and while he was in the business world. But he did not consider himself a professional until later in life.

“When I was around 60, my friend Phil Block, the Director of Education at the International Center of Photography, urged me to become professionally involved in photography,” Meyers recalled. “Bob Shamis, the curator of photography at the Museum of the City of New York, selected two pictures from my ‘Outer Boroughs: New York Beyond Manhattan’ series to be in the MCNY’s ‘New York Now 2000’ exhibition; they were exhibited alongside work by photographers whose work I admired, and so I became a professional.”

“Civics” has been in progress for 25 years. The photographs range over streets, neighborhoods, offices, and public spaces all over New York, offering a broad view of how citizens engage with each other and the communities that they call home. Its release, coinciding with the United States’ 250th anniversary, offers a timely reflection of shared civic life in the context of heightened political and social tensions.

“There have been changes, but probably fewer here than in the rest of the country; politics in New York tends to be static,” Meyers wrote to me. “The circumstances under which I had to work are what stay in mind: the bitter cold when I shot the school buses from an overpass at Co-op City; standing on a bed in Stephen Witt’s basement apartment to get him at his desk; the times the gods of photography granted me a boon, like having the woman on the side of the tour bus turn up just as I was about to take my picture of Occupy Wall Street at Zuccotti Park; standing on a bench late at night to shoot a rat scurrying around the reservoir in Central Park.”

Shot entirely in Black and white, the photographs themselves harken back to the photographs of the Civil Rights Movement and the photo essays that were once published in magazines like “LIFE” and “LOOK” that brought a view of the wider world into American homes for decades. The fact that both ended around the time of the Watergate break-in that led to President Nixon’s resignation is not lost on me when comparing them to Meyer’s work.

And while he stated that politics in New York has tended to be static, that is now changing. With the election of Democratic Socialist Mayor Zohran Mamdani last fall, and now his three endorsed candidates sweeping the New York City Democratic Primaries on June 23, the Democratic Party in the city is shifting. This transformation is due not in a small part to events that Meyers has photographed over the last decade and a half. These kinds of changes don’t happen overnight or on their own. Rather, they are the result of people making an effort to get involved in the process to bring change to fruition.

“You know, different people see different things in the same picture; even knowledgeable viewers see different things. Now that “Civics” is published, it will have to fend for itself,” Meyers said. “The book is about the mechanics of government, but it is also about how ordinary citizens take part in the process, and I expect they will respond to some degree according to how they are involved. For myself, I came to see that democracy is not just a theory of government, but a culture, the way in which people habitually deal with each other and with their common problems. Done right, it is instinctive.”

“Civics” is published by Apollo Publishers, and can be purchased through their website at apollopublishers.com.