STORE FRONT is a photographic survey documenting the fast disappearing mom-and-pop stores of New York City. JAMES AND KARLA MURRAY spent more than ten years photographing the distinctive storefronts of family-run shops in neighborhoods throughout the city. From cheerful Italian bakeries with hand-painted murals to the dingy dive bar that became a local institution, the Murrays’ bright photographs are a striking visual record of how colorful and idiosyncratic each block of New York’s streetscape once was. Since the Murrays began their project, many of the subjects have now shuttered, pushed out by chains. STORE FRONT has been praised by THE NEW YORKER—“These unfussy, elegant, and richly colored photographs give connoisseurs of signage, folk typography, and ambient erosion much to pore over”—and THE LONDON TELEGRAPH: “STORE FRONT offers vivid and intimate insights into the life of one of the world’s great cities.”

JAMES AND KARLA MURRAY are specialists in urban photography. They have co-authored two books on New York City graffiti art, “Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC” (Gingko Press 2002) and “Burning New York” (Gingko 2006). Their work has been the subject of exhibitions at the New-York Historical Society and the Brooklyn Historical Society, and is part of the permanent collections of the Smithsonian and the New York Public Library.