Weegee’s Flash of Genius
A Provocative New Bio of the Crime Photographer
Born Usher (Arthur) Fellig at the turn of the 20th Century, Weegee was, and still is, famous for his graphic crime scene photos taken during the 1930s and 40s on New York City’s Lower East Side. The startling black & white images and the man who took them are the subject of a new biography, Flash: The Making of Weegee The Famous, by Christpher Bonanos, the city editor of New York magazine.
While Weegee has been the subject of many biographies, include his own memoir, Weegee: The Autobiography, this new novel goes deeper into the legend that was the man. Even the story of his pseudonym is demystified by Bonanos. The story goes that Weegee got his name for his almost psychic ability to show up at crime scenes just as the murders had happened, sometimes before the police even arrived. His uncanny timing earning him the Weegee alias, a sound-alike of the spiritual Ouija board game popular at the time. Fact is, according to Bonanos, when Arthur Fellig was an up-and-comer photographer, he worked as a “squeegee boy” in the dark room of the New York Times, drying prints for the newspaper.
No matter the moniker’s origin, Weegee’s “noir” photography was graphic—frightening at times—and set the standard for future tabloid photojournalism. While most famous for his images of the brutal and bloody endings of gangsters and mobsters—he claimed to have shot over 5,000 murders—he was also known for his shots of people just acting human on the gritty streets of New York.
Although he died in 1968, at age 69, Weegee’s work continues to inspire. From greats like Diane Arbus to the opening credits of Watchmen to 2014’s Nightcrawler, about a loner videographer (Jake Gyllenhaal) who roams the streets of Los Angeles shooting death and danger for the local news, none of these would have been possible without the steady eye of the original Nightcrawler, Weegee.
