From collection Kosti Ruohomaa Collection
New York City Market 9
In this image a butcher works with a side of lamb at a meat counter. Skinned lambs' hind ends hang by their feet behind him. A boy looks up at the camera from the right.
Because it was never published, little is known about this Life Magazine assignment covering one of the new, state-of-the-art indoor food markets in New York City. Its subject matter, ordinary people working with their hands or performing daily tasks, suited Kosti. Here the setting is urban, a detour from his more usual rural settings, but the photographer invests the same energy and powers of observation capturing the spirit of the scene.
Narratively, the Market series notes the theme of government intervention in the marketplace during wartime. Until 1945, New York City dwellers purchased their food from an unregulated constellation of small grocery stores, retail butchers, and push-cart street vendors. During World War II the FDR administration ordered the Works Progress Administration (WPA), with the support of Mayor LaGuardia, to build ten modern, indoor, sanitary and affordable market facilities fitted with cold storage throughout the five boroughs of New York City. The new system was overseen by a new Commissioner of Consumer Services under the NYC Department of Markets, who delivered "weekly radio addresses on WNYC...on food prices, seasonal produce and recipes." According to the website turnstiletours.com the ten markets "were especially useful during...[wartime] rationing and food shortages." Kosti's images provide a vivid glimpse back into a post-Depression era of provisioning preceding the advent of the supermarket, when the costs of waste were high, and personal interactions with the producers of the food itself were intrinsic to the experience.
