In Sven Åsberg's photographs, we encounter the optimistic world city of the early 1960s: the glass and concrete skyscrapers, ice skaters in Central Park, the best old shoppers on Madison Avenue, bathing crowds of people on the public beaches. But there is also a vulnerability that foreshadows social division and political conflict: strikes in the subway, the black protest movement, children playing in dusty and gloomy street corners. Åsberg's pictures depict a New York that no longer exists, but he also captures what has been and suggests what is to come.

I Sven Åsbergs fotografier moter vi det tidiga 1960-talets optimistiska varldsstad: skyskraporna i glas och betong, skridskoakare i Central Park, va lbesta llda shoppare pa Madison Avenue, badsugna manniskomassor pa de offentliga stranderna. Men dar finns ocksa en utsatthet som forebadar social splittring och politisk konflikt: strejkvarsel i tunnelbanan, den svarta protest- rorelsen, barn som leker i dammiga och dystra gathorn. Åsbergs bilder skildrar ett New York som inte langre finns men han fangar ocksa det som varit och antyder det som komma skall.