Allan Tannenbaum's photo of Andy Warhol and Divine, both iconic figures
of the 1970s New York scene, was a part of his 'Bright Lights, Big City:
New York in the 70s' exhibition. (Creative Commons licensed)

A cigarette drooping from his lower lip, eyebrows raised over aviator sunglasses, Jack Nicholson peers through the passenger-side window of a car. He's wearing a tuxedo with a gold bowtie. He's taking some time off, blowing off some steam, two years after "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" and three years before "The Shining." Behind him, Linda Ronstadt blankly stares ahead with circles under her wide eyes. Carl Bernstein wears a giddy smile over his tie, sweater and jacket. It's just another night in the city that never sleeps.

Nearby, four black women drape over a baby grand piano as Stevie Wonder's smile shows four pearly first molars sitting below a thick mustache as his hands stroke the keys. He's wearing a white turtleneck and displaying a vibrancy and happiness uncharacteristic of the conceptual, developed sounds of "Songs in the Key of Life," based on his experience in a terrible car accident two years before. The crowd shouts and claps, as a woman sits beside Stevie with an Afro that only can be described as funky.

These pictures capture glimpses of "Bright Lights, Big City: New York in the 70s," a narrative told through the lens of photographer Allan Tannenbaum. The 50 or so black-and-white candids in the gallery at 7775 Beverley Boulevard included shots of Allen Ginsburg, Keith Richards, Martin Scorsese, James Brown, Iggy Pop and Bob Marley.

Many of the candid images depict not only the period of time but the lives of the icons that defined 1970s New York. Around the gallery, a Saturday-night audience sipped strong drinks and admired the artwork with a touch of nostalgia.

The band started to play. A violin joined the acoustic guitar, bass and drums in an upbeat song with a sound reminiscent of "The Shock of Lightning" by Oasis. The audience leaned, rocked, bobbed, stood, headbanged and swayed. Some were motionless. They stood in a cluster of dyed hair and dress slacks, leather jackets with skeletons sewn on and alligator shoes -- a mass of contradiction.

Many were paying their continued respect to an era of greatness; an era of grunge and rebellion; an era of rock n' roll.

"New York is not the same. At CBGB we took our life into our own hands. There's no danger; now kids hang out [there] all the time without a care," said Mike Page, a blonde-haired Hall-of-Fame rocker with a sandy goatee who once toured with the Sex Pistols. "There's no magic now -- it's a family thing."

Behind Page, a large 30-by-40 inch photo of New York's cityscape highlighted the Twin Towers and World Trade Center. Indeed, much has changed since then, from SoHo to the Upper East Side.

"It was dirty and hot; there was prostitution everywhere, crime everywhere. Then Giuliani cleaned up the area," said Marissa Thomas, 29, with a snap of her fingers. "He cleaned up the area."

"After 9/11, people are nice," said Chad Smith, a muscular man with short blonde hair in a double-breasted white shirt who graduated from a college in New York in 2002. "It's no longer 'me first.' The attitude changed to, do I really need to say 'eff you' to the person who grabbed the last milk?"

The typewriters and 10-cent-per-1/9 mile cab fares are not the least of the relics hanging on the walls.

"These guys made me believe," said Paul Dempsey, 23, a Australian musician. "I fed off the energy of people out there making music without anybody's permission."

Another photo captures John Lennon reading a newspaper in 1980 beside a portrait of the album cover for "Double Fantasy," the last album produced before his assassination in December of that year outside the Dakota Hotel. It's clear that many in the mostly over-30 crowd mark that murder as the end of an era -- and some are still reeling from this decline.