Production photograph of George Chakiris, Eddie Verso, Jerome Robbins, and crew filming West Side Story

Jerome Robbins, a lifelong New Yorker, was determined that the movie version of his successful Broadway show West Side Story would represent his native city in all its gritty glory. Rarely seen production photographs like this one speak to his filming innovations. Here, he has dug into the pavement to shoot choreography from below—a change in perspective for filming dance that had not been explored since the musicals of director Busby Berkeley (1895–1976) in the 1930s and 40s, and then to very different effect. This image also captures the impact of Robert Moses’s urban renewal scheme for the area known as San Juan Hill, home to predominantly Black and Puerto Rican communities, which was razed to make way for Lincoln Center. The film’s opening fight scene takes place on the ground where Robbins later cemented his choreographic career during his tenure at New York City Ballet, and where the Dance Division at the Library for the Performing Arts bears his name.