Tell Your Summer in the City Story With the Urban Archive Photo Call

Do you have a summer-themed pic with an evocative New York City tale to pair with it? Urban Archive is asking the public for summer in the city images paired with stories of New Yorkers dealing with the steamy weather.

Urban Archive, a tech nonprofit that works with dozens of New York City’s collecting institutions to map historic images and create a mobile archive, has an open call for personal snapshots to add to their collection.

The photos don’t necessarily have to be vintage, but they do need to have been taken within the five boroughs, have a summer theme, and feature at least one person in the shot. Perhaps you have a photo of a family member darting through an open fire hydrant, taking a dip in a city pool, or installing some awnings to keep their house cool.

Submissions are being taken all summer via the online submission form. The form asks for a few details such as the approximate date the photo was taken, the location, and any story or memory you want to share about the person or place in the image.

Photos that are submitted will be viewable online and will become part of the Queens Memory Project, a community archive and oral history collection. The Urban Archive summer-themed project is also a partnership with Melting Metropolis, which explores how city dwellers in New York, London, and Paris have been affected by heat since 1945.

If you want to peruse some of the summer photos submitted in 2024, you can check out the mapped images here.

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