Photographs by Camilo José Vergara

From the time he arrived in the United States from Chile as a college student in 1965, the photographer Camilo José Vergara has been haunting, and haunted by, American cities.

On each visit he has done the same thing: take pictures, mostly of buildings, often the same ones, recording over decades their abandonment, disintegration, demolition and replacement by cheaper structures, or parking lots, or by nothing at all.

This vigilance has produced several books, among them two great, generative visual essays in architectural anthropology, “The New American Ghetto” (1995) and “American Ruins” (1999), and exhibitions like “Harlem, 1970-2009: Photographs by Camilo José Vergara” now at the New-York Historical Society.

To Read the rest of the article and read narration on the pictures read the Art Review on The New York Times Website