Photojournalist shares memorable shots at Butterfield
Few people can claim they’ve seen it all. Even fewer can say they’ve shot it all.
Charles Ruppmann, 80, who lives in Peekskill, did shoot it all, for 50 years, as a general-assignment photographer for the New York Daily News.
A collection of his news photos is on display at the Butterfield Library in Cold Spring through June 30.
Ruppmann was a child when he took his first photo at a family Christmas celebration, using a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye. He says he had no idea he’d go on to photograph the good the bad and the ugly of New York City — everything from crime, politics and sports, to celebrities, riots … and streaking.
He clearly remembers the date he started as a copy boy at the Daily News: July 5, 1960. “They wouldn’t let me come in before that because they would have had to give me the July 4 holiday!” he recalls.
He soon moved to the studio, where he mixed chemicals, printed copies and learned the photographic process. Before long, he was a working photographer.
“When I went out on the street, they handed me a speed graphic,” he said, which enabled single or multiple exposures to be removed without having to develop the entire roll. “I covered an eclipse from the top of the Empire State Building with that camera,” he says.
In his first assignments, he traveled the city in a Daily News radio car with a former police officer as his driver. “His name was Harry; we’d listen to police and fire radios, go down by City Hall,” Ruppmann said.
One of the first calls was to the collapse of scaffolding on 20th Street. “A guy was hanging from the 12th floor,” he said. “My shot made the front page.”
When he went to the 18th Precinct in 1970, he found trumpeter Miles Davis being booked after being arrested for driving his red Ferrari without an inspection sticker, driver’s license or registration, and for possessing brass knuckles.
“I took a shot of him just sitting there, looking at me,” he said. “I felt so bad for him, though I’m sure he would have loved to kick my ass.”
After thousands of photos, Ruppmann has no problem choosing his favorite. It shows police breaking up the 1968 demonstrations by Columbia University students who were protesting the Vietnam War and racial injustice. “I was there all week on the midnight shift; I should have received a degree for being there that long,” Ruppmann said with a laugh.
He remembers the demonstrations for another reason: Famed columnist Walter Winchell was covering the story. “I was surprised to see him because he was elderly, like I am now,” Ruppmann said.
In the chaos, he saw Winchell get hit by demonstrators running through a courtyard. “He went up in the air and came down hard,” Ruppmann recalls. “I thought he was dead, but he got up and ran after them.”
Celebrity assignments were considerably easier. He ranks his shot of Barbra Streisand in a shoulder-to-shoulder crowd at the 1975 opening of her movie Funny Girl as one of his most memorable.
While not a sports photographer, Ruppmann had his big-game moments, including one at Shea Stadium during the 1986 World Series when he captured a home run swing by Lenny Dykstra in the bottom of the ninth that gave the Mets a 6-5 win.
A classic Ruppmann photo, if viewed without context, could be described as ordinary. But it is chilling when seen in light of the story behind it.
Taken in 1972, it shows a man peering from behind partially drawn curtains. He is John Wojtowicz, in the midst of robbing a Chase Manhattan Bank in Brooklyn, a crime that would be immortalized in Dog Day Afternoon.
“I had a long lens because we were cordoned off,” away from the bank, Ruppmann said. “He looked out and I just happened to get the shot.”
Ruppmann’s satisfaction with a crime photo from 1979 may hint at his sense of humor, the sort likely required by his profession. It shows morgue attendants carrying the body of mobster Carmine Galante out of a Brooklyn restaurant. Above, a sign read: “We give special attention to outgoing orders.”
“That’s funny,” Ruppmann said. “It was a natural; everybody liked it.”
He photographed many politicians, but it was the aftermath of a group shot in the mid-1970s that included then-New York City Mayor Abe Beame that stands out.
After the photo he was approached by Roy Cohn, who had served as chief counsel to Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s and became a mentor to Donald Trump.
“Cohn came up to me, put $100 in my pocket and said, ‘Cut Abe Beame out of the photo,’” Ruppmann recalls. “I told him I couldn’t,” adding that it felt good to give the $100 back.
Ruppmann retired in 2010 but still shoots for a German newspaper. “There’s no pay, but they use my stuff,” he said. “And they always spell my name right.”
Photos courtesy of New York Daily News.
