Writer and documentarian Sam Stephenson presents a program based his new book, Gene Smith’s Sink, which tells the story of his twenty years following the footsteps of legendary mid-century photographer Eugene Smith. The book documents Smith’s underground New York City “jazz loft,” which was an afterhours haunt for jazz musicians in the late 1950s and early ‘60s. Frequent visitors to the loft included Thelonious Monk, Zoot Sims, and yes… even Doris Duke.

Located in Manhattan’s Flower District, Eugene Smith’s loft became a late night meeting place for some of the most creative musicians of the mid 20th century, all documented in captivating photographs and audiotapes. Smith recorded the electrifying jam sessions that took place, along with a background collage of cultural snippets off of radio and television – President John F. Kennedy, James Baldwin, the 1960 World Series, Cassius Clay, Dorothy Parker, Norman Mailer – that perfectly capture a culture in transition. Fifty years later, Stephenson has dissected and elaborated on Smith’s unique archive, interviewing more than five hundred people he discovered in Smith’s materials.