Chicago, 1963 / Printed 2009

In 1963, Danny Lyon spent time in a poor white area of Chicago called Uptown. Nicknamed ‘hillbilly heaven’, it was a very tough and deprived neighborhood. With a borrowed Rolleiflex camera, he followed the inhabitants of Clifton Street, where he befriended the families who lived there, documenting intimate moments both inside their homes and on the street. “Three Young Men” captures three men who had moved to the Uptown area from the deep South, posing against a concrete wall tagged by chalk graffiti. Their tough stance and rebellious manner is tempered by a sense of youthful vulnerability.