When crime and grime gripped New Jersey and New York City: Striking photos from the 1970s and 80s put impoverished neighborhoods on full display

  • Award-winning photographer and sociologist Helen M. Stummer took thousands of photos during her more than 40-year career capturing gripping scenes in New Jersey and New York
  • She captured gripping images showing impoverished people in Newark, New Jersey and New York City 
  • Her exhibit titled 'Risking Life and Lens' is on view at the International Center of Photography in New Jersey
  • Of her stunning career, the 82-year-old told DailyMail.com: 'I became involved with communities. I don’t just photograph and leave. I stay year in and year out and I become friends with the people.'

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New York City in the 1980s was a terrifying place. Crime rates soared sky high with drug dealers and prostitutes openly working the streets of Gotham nonstop and the city was just about in financial ruin. Similar scenes of danger and destruction could also be found just across the Hudson River in impoverished neighborhoods like Newark, New Jersey – which at one point was named the worst city of all during the time period.

Award-winning social documentary photographer Helen M. Stummer captured dozens of gripping and heart wrenching scenes in both New York City and Newark during that time period and beyond.

Working for more than 40 years, Stummer, who is a visual sociologist, explained to DailyMail.com that she spent countless hours building relationships with many of the people she focused her lens on.

‘I'd stay year in and year out and I become friends with people,’ the 82-year-old said. ‘That’s how I overcame my fear or one of the ways. I come from the suburbs, and in the suburbs you’re pretty much conditioned to fear anything that’s different. I had to force myself out of that.’

Stummer shared that early on she was a painter and that she wanted to learn how to use her camera properly so that she could take images of the things she wanted to paint. She was accepted into the second class group at the acclaimed International Center of Photography (ICP) and was sent to the Lower East Side to photograph the neighborhood, which during the 1970s was full of crime and grime and was not the trendy hipster hotspot it is now.

New York City in the 1980s was a terrifying place. Crime rates soared sky high with drug dealers and prostitutes openly working the streets of Gotham nonstop and the city was just about in financial ruin. Award-winning photographer Helen M. Stummer took thousands of images showcasing impoverished neighborhoods over her 40-year career. The photo above was captured in 1979 of a young child with his hands over his head staring on East 6th Street in the Lower East Side

New York City in the 1980s was a terrifying place. Crime rates soared sky high with drug dealers and prostitutes openly working the streets of Gotham nonstop and the city was just about in financial ruin. Award-winning photographer Helen M. Stummer took thousands of images showcasing impoverished neighborhoods over her 40-year career. The photo above was captured in 1979 of a young child with his hands over his head staring on East 6th Street in the Lower East Side

Similar scenes of danger and destruction could also be found just across the Hudson River in impoverished neighborhoods like Newark, New Jersey ¿ which at one point was named the worst city of all during the time period. Stummer spent more than a decade in the city capturing run-down areas like the one pictured above on Clinton Avenue and Peshine Avenue in 1982 

Similar scenes of danger and destruction could also be found just across the Hudson River in impoverished neighborhoods like Newark, New Jersey – which at one point was named the worst city of all during the time period. Stummer spent more than a decade in the city capturing run-down areas like the one pictured above on Clinton Avenue and Peshine Avenue in 1982 

Stummer, who is a visual sociologist, explained to DailyMail.com that she spent countless hours building relationships with many of the people she focused her lens on. One of those people include the woman pictured above named Shirley, who Stummer often photographed. The image above was taken in 1979 on East 6th Street in the Lower East Side 

Stummer, who is a visual sociologist, explained to DailyMail.com that she spent countless hours building relationships with many of the people she focused her lens on. One of those people include the woman pictured above named Shirley, who Stummer often photographed. The image above was taken in 1979 on East 6th Street in the Lower East Side 

¿I stay year in and year out and I become friends with people,¿ the 82-year-old said. Stummer's relationship with Shirley developed with the mother allowing her inside of her home. The photographer captured the above image of Shirley with her twin daughter playing in 1978

‘I stay year in and year out and I become friends with people,’ the 82-year-old said. Stummer's relationship with Shirley developed with the mother allowing her inside of her home. The photographer captured the above image of Shirley with her twin daughter playing in 1978

Stummer also took her camera along with her to a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1979 in New Jersey (pictured above). At the time, she explained that she worked at a local newspaper as a reporter

Stummer also took her camera along with her to a Ku Klux Klan rally in 1979 in New Jersey (pictured above). At the time, she explained that she worked at a local newspaper as a reporter

Of the experience, she said: ¿I mean it is a scary sight and I had never seen anything like that in reality. But I kept photographing everyone who was just hanging around out there. I don¿t really remember much of what really went on because I was so scared.¿ Pictured above is another photograph from that same KKK rally 

Of the experience, she said: ‘I mean it is a scary sight and I had never seen anything like that in reality. But I kept photographing everyone who was just hanging around out there. I don’t really remember much of what really went on because I was so scared.’ Pictured above is another photograph from that same KKK rally 

One of the striking images Stummer captured in 1979 shows children playing in water from a broken fire hydrant while a mother holds her adorable baby girl up to dip her feet in the street water.

‘You don’t realize how cold that hydrant water really is. I don’t know how that baby is in the water or any of the children,’ Stummer said of the photo.

‘I put my feet in there and it is beyond freezing, honestly it is so cold. But I loved that photo and capturing that moment with the mother, named Shirley, holding the baby who was named Michelle.’

She added that she spent a lot of time with Shirley and others in the then-impoverished neighborhood, especially at the Children’s Aide Society, which was located on East 6th Street at the time.

‘What I saw at East 6th street, I knew at that moment, it was an intuitive thing a gut thing, that I knew this was the place I wanted to photograph,’ she revealed. ‘And my whole foundation seemed to shift when I experienced that.

‘I would go on the street and I became involved with the families. And that’s how you get intimate photographs, you can’t just go in and do it. It doesn’t happen like that you have to spend time and that’s what I did.’

But Stummer said she was forced to stop photographing the area around the Children’s Aide Society when she was surrounded by drug dealers who were taking over the community.

‘I would go to the Children’s Aide Society and go on the street once or twice a week until the drug dealers told me I had to leave,’ she stated.

Stummer seemingly first kicked off her photography career when she captured hundreds of images showing the Lower East Side thanks to her assignment while she was a student at the International Center of Photography. Pictured above are two young girls holding dolls in front of a building on East 6th Street in 1977

Stummer seemingly first kicked off her photography career when she captured hundreds of images showing the Lower East Side thanks to her assignment while she was a student at the International Center of Photography. Pictured above are two young girls holding dolls in front of a building on East 6th Street in 1977

Stummer shared that when she first went out to take photos, she was so scared and her hands shook when she held the camera for the first six months. But eventually she settled into the community and was a regular on the scene. Pictured above is a scene on East 6th Street taken by Stummer in 1980

Stummer shared that when she first went out to take photos, she was so scared and her hands shook when she held the camera for the first six months. But eventually she settled into the community and was a regular on the scene. Pictured above is a scene on East 6th Street taken by Stummer in 1980

She also started to venture into Newark, New Jersey in the beginning of the 80s when crime was rampant in the then-impoverished neighborhood. Pictured above is a boy walking in the fog in Newark in 1982 that Stummer captured 

She also started to venture into Newark, New Jersey in the beginning of the 80s when crime was rampant in the then-impoverished neighborhood. Pictured above is a boy walking in the fog in Newark in 1982 that Stummer captured 

She explained that her experiences early on gave her the confidence to go to neighborhoods where most people were scared to step foot in. Pictured above is a young girl named Danielle in 1990 holding a Rainbow Brite doll on the rooftop of her building in Newark 

She explained that her experiences early on gave her the confidence to go to neighborhoods where most people were scared to step foot in. Pictured above is a young girl named Danielle in 1990 holding a Rainbow Brite doll on the rooftop of her building in Newark 

One of the most striking images Stummer captured is above showing three young children playing with dirt near illegally dumped tires outside of their residential building in 1992. ¿I photographed there for 15 years. Trucks would come in the middle of the night and illegally dump tires and other things there,¿ she said. ¿It made me so angry and I would take these photographs to the health department and the housing department, but nothing would happen

One of the most striking images Stummer captured is above showing three young children playing with dirt near illegally dumped tires outside of their residential building in 1992. ‘I photographed there for 15 years. Trucks would come in the middle of the night and illegally dump tires and other things there,’ she said. ‘It made me so angry and I would take these photographs to the health department and the housing department, but nothing would happen

‘1980 the heavy drugs came in and everyone was scared. I mean everyone. One day I was going to the Children’s Aide Society like I usually did and before I knew it there were a bunch of men surrounding me.

‘They had the chains and big hats on and seemed like they were nine feet tall because I was so scared. They told me they didn’t want me taking pictures anymore and said if they see me with my camera out one more time, it’s done, it’s over.’

Luckily, Stummer escaped from being harmed during the incident and didn’t return back to the area for years.

Another image that Stummer captured shows members of the Ku Klux Klan at a 1979 rally in New Jersey. At the time, Stummer explained that she was working as a reporter at a local newspaper and that she decided to go and take her camera.

‘When I saw them, my first reaction was to laugh. I was going to tell them “please this is not Halloween”, but it took only a few short seconds after that thought that my blood went really cold,’ she said of the experience.

‘I mean it is a scary sight and I had never seen anything like that in reality. But I kept photographing everyone who was just hanging around out there. I don’t really remember much of what really went on because I was so scared.’

The 82-year-old New Jersey native also documented Newark’s Central Ward for many years where she became friends with many of her subjects.

Another captivating photo she took shows the boy above named Ali who jumped into her frame at the last second. Stummer said she was focusing her camera on the men behind the boy outside of a building in Newark in 1999

Another captivating photo she took shows the boy above named Ali who jumped into her frame at the last second. Stummer said she was focusing her camera on the men behind the boy outside of a building in Newark in 1999

The striking photos Stummer captured are currently on display at the ICP Gallery at Mana Contemporary Arts in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exhibit , titled ¿Risk Life and Lens¿, is on limited viewing at the gallery and coincides with the publication of her new book Risking Life and Lens: A Photographic Memoir.

The striking photos Stummer captured are currently on display at the ICP Gallery at Mana Contemporary Arts in Jersey City, New Jersey. The exhibit , titled ‘Risk Life and Lens’, is on limited viewing at the gallery and coincides with the publication of her new book Risking Life and Lens: A Photographic Memoir.

One of the captivating images she captured in 1992 shows three young children playing in the dirt near tires that were dumped just outside of a their home at 322 Irving Boulevard in Newark.

‘I photographed there for 15 years. Trucks would come in the middle of the night and illegally dump tires and other things there,’ she said. ‘It made me so angry and I would take these photographs to the health department and the housing department, but nothing would happen.

‘The landlord wouldn’t fix those violations no matter what. What angered me so much is that it was such an injustice that kids had to play in these horrid places.

‘They would get rashes and the parents were just so tired. They complained so much but never got anywhere with anything and so many of them were sick and it was just a total injustice to me.’

The striking photos Stummer captured are currently on display at the ICP Gallery at Mana Contemporary Arts in Jersey City, New Jersey. 

The exhibit, titled ‘Risk Life and Lens’, is on limited viewing at the gallery and coincides with the publication of her new book Risking Life and Lens: A Photographic Memoir.

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