Exterior location shot for 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. His archive includes significant amounts of film and photographs documenting his location scouting. The torn-down tenement buildings in this image resulted from Robert Moses’s urban renewal scheme for the area that is now Lincoln Center. Somewhat ironically, 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 bears his name at the Library for the Performing Arts.