Unseen portraits of high school teenagers in ’70s New York

As the United States celebrated its bicentennial during the summer of 1976, Brooklyn native Larry Racioppo was pursuing his burgeoning photography career. From his home in South Slope, he zipped around town in a baby blue Volkswagen Beetle, working a series of odd jobs to make his $125/​month rent. Alternately a bartender, carpenter, photo assistant, and yellow cab driver, Racioppo remembers, ​“I had no clear idea of the future. I just really liked to walk around my neighbourhood and photograph.” 

One day, while perusing the New York Times ads, Racioppo spotted an intriguing gig: a part-time job teaching basic photography to high school students in White Plains – a suburb just north of The Bronx, which was flourishing under massive urban renewal projects while the city burned. Then 28, Racioppo got the job at Educage, a program that began with a $25,000 (worth $150,000 today) federal grant to create 20 schools across Westchester, one of the 10 richest counties nationwide in the early ​’70s. 

Each school was created to serve 100 students between the ages of 14 – 21 years old who had been expelled, dropped out, or had legal troubles, providing them with the opportunity to wipe the slate clean and earn a full high school diploma. Educage developed a curriculum that spoke to the times, offering classes like ​“Black Man in America”, ​“Democracy and Dictatorship”, and ​“American System of Law, How It Is and How It Ought to Be”, as well as elective courses like photography. 

• Read next: Nostalgic scenes of summer in 1970s upstate New York

Racioppo began work in September 1976, teaching four or five small classes between the hours of 9am and 1pm. The school provided students with 35mm cameras and a full black-and-white darkroom where they could develop and print their work. ​“Some learned quickly, others more slowly. Some dropped out, some returned the next semester,” he remembers. ​“I did my best to make the class fun and had no discipline problems.”

He encountered students from all walks of life, and turned the camera on them to create a series of environmental portraits that have gone unseen for half a century. ​“I did not always have a working darkroom. I had little money for printing paper, and even less self-discipline back then,” Racioppo explains. ​“Playing basketball and going out spared me the hard work of making good prints. Looking back now, I can’t believe how lazy I was, and how lucky I was to have learned to properly process and preserve my black-and-white negatives.” 

Luck, as it has been said, is when preparation and opportunity meet. With the rediscovery of 20 rolls of film made during his year at Educage, Racioppo restores a lost chapter of his archive. ​“My students looked as fresh as I remembered: simultaneously tough and oh so vulnerable,” he says. ​“They liked being photographed, both by me and by each other. I’ve received a few letters over the years thanking me for being a positive influence, and that always felt really good.”

• Read next: Subversive shots of Catholic schoolgirls in ​’80s New York

All photos © Larry Racioppo. To see more of his work, visit his official website.

Miss Rosen is a freelance arts and photography writer, follow her on X.

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