Join us as photographers James T. and Karla L. Murray speak about their most recent book, Counter Culture, and some of our neighborhoods’ and New York’s most iconic lunch spots such as B&H Dairy and Veselka.

For more than a century, New York City’s Mom & Pop diners and luncheonettes have been serving the melting pot, piping fresh and hot. Under the warm glow of neon lights, local landmarks like the Lexington Candy Shop and La Bonbonniere offer an escape from the frenetic pace of daily life, while others like Tom’s Restaurant are elevated to pop culture fame, appearing as an exterior locale on Seinfeld and inspiring Suzanne Vega’s folk song turned club classic, “Tom’s Diner.”

For James and Karla, these New York institutions embody the city at its best, providing comfort foods affordably priced all hours of the day and night. These street-level independent businesses, often family-owned, have been anchors in the community across generations. But in recent years, gentrification has forced many of the businesses to close their doors at an alarming rate.

Blending New York history, culinary culture, and interior design with epicurean delight, Counter Culture offers a wealth of details to be savored at length over a black-and-white cookie. Perch on a swivel stool along the sweeping Formica counter where the action is hot, or slide into a cozy booth, perusing the sumptuous array of comfort foods like syrup-soaked pancakes, classic burger and fries, and bottomless mugs of coffee — or sample family favorites from the old country, like Greek gyros, Ukrainian borscht, Cuban sandwiches, Thai disco fries, and Korean fried chicken wings. In Counter Culture, there’s a little something for everyone.

James and Karla Murray are husband-and-wife architectural and interior photographers and multi-media artists based in New York City. For over twenty-five years, they have focused their lens on the streetscape through portraits of storefronts and shop owners and have strived to capture moments of city life that often go undocumented but capture the spirit, energy and cultural diversity of individual neighborhoods. They made it their mission to thoroughly document unique ‘mom-and-pop’ stores when they began to notice the alarming rate at which the shops were disappearing.

Their critically acclaimed books include Store Front NYC: Photographs of the City’s Independent Shops Past and Present, Great Bars of New York City, Vinyl NYC: 33 1/3 of the Best Record Stores Across All Five Boroughs,  Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, New York Nights, Store Front II- A History Preserved and Broken Windows-Graffiti NYC. The authors’ landmark 2008 book, Store Front, was cited in BookForum’s Dec/Jan 2015 issue as one of the “Exemplary Art Books From The Past Two Decades” and heralded as “One of the period’s most successful New York books.” New York Nights was the winner of the prestigious New York Society Library’s 2012 New York City Book Award.