Karla and James Murray are wife-and-husband architectural and interior photographers based in Manhattan’s East Village. For years they have photographed the storefronts, bars, diners and other independent businesses of New York City, many of them under pressure from rising rents and gentrification. Their books include Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York (2008), New York Nights (2012), which received the New York City Book Award from the New York Society Library, and, with Prestel, Store Front NYC, Great Bars of New York City and Vinyl NYC.
Their work is held in the collections of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the New York Public Library, and they received the 2015 Regina Kellerman Award from the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.
Their book Counter Culture (Prestel, 2026), with text by the food journalist Emma Orlow, presents 30 of Manhattan’s best-loved diners and luncheonettes in 224 pages and about 200 colour photographs: exteriors, interiors and small details such as menu boards and chrome stools. (Website, Instagram, Youtube)
