John Taylor Roberts is an artist. 1 work is cataloged here, principally at Victoria and Albert Museum.

John Taylor Roberts lugged his big wooden camera around 1880s New York rooftops at dusk, chasing the last light on tin roofs and fire escapes. He shot the city when it still had raw edges, no retouching, no soft focus. You’ll find his glass-plate photographs in the New-York Historical Society’s storage drawers, numbered in his scratchy hand.

Slide open a drawer, pick any print, and you’re standing on a sooty wooden plank six stories up, wind in your ears.