New York and street photography were made for each other, which is why Matilde Damele (b. Bologna; lives and works in Rome), a master of the genre, left home for the big city in the late 1990s. She spent fifteen years in New York, and now her forays have congealed in this singular picture book. The light, the skyscraper-lined avenues, the pedestrians hurrying past and their loneliness in crowds - nimbly wielding her camera, Damele recorded all of it in classic black and white.

The result is an outstanding portrait of a forward-looking metropolis that continually draws our attention to its past.