Former North Philly photog's book shines a light on the neighborhood

Daniel Traub grew up near Fitler Square but often spent summer days during his teenage years in North Philly where his mother, Lily Yeh, established The Village of Arts & Humanities community center. “It was like going to a different city,” Traub remembers. “It’s all one city but in a way there’s this huge divide between these places.” Traub later moved away, studied photography and lived in China for 10 years. He now calls Brooklyn home. 

But North Philly stuck with him, and between 2008 and 2013, he returned to take pictures. At first it was the glowing storefronts of Chinese takeout restaurants and the lush, miniature wildernesses of overgrown vacant lots that drew his eye. Later it was the people and the churches. Traub’s new large-format photography book, North Philadelphia (published by Kehrer Verlag) shows the neighborhood as he sees it: a place of beauty, grace and decay. One photo shows a church established in a looming stone building that was obviously a bank in a previous life. In another, two African-American kids stare dead ahead into the camera, one striking an adolescent tough-guy pose, the other looking thoughtful and vulnerable. 

Traub, half-white and half-Asian, knew he was an outsider going into the project. “There was an element of suspicion with some of the people,” he says. “In general, however, people were warm and welcoming, particularly when I explained that I was making a book of photographs about North Philadelphia. In fact, many people approached me and asked to be photographed.”

North Philadelphia book launch, Tue., Dec. 16, 6 p.m., free, Print Center, 1614 Latimer St., 215-735-6090, printcenter.org, danieltraub.net.