Neal Boenzi has an eye for quality, picking up deals on antique beer taps and neon signs at Southern California swap meets. His friends have no idea that the gravelly voiced East Coast retiree once used that eye to make some of the greatest New York City newspaper photographs for much of the latter half of the 20th century.

Why should they? Mr. Boenzi was not a self-promoter. His editors at The New York Times, on the other hand, knew quite well about his vast archives. That’s because he had walked away with much of it when he retired in 1991. Several years ago they dispatched two of his friends and former colleagues, Mary Hardiman and Librado Romero, to persuade Mr. Boenzi to hand over the goods.

Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

“It was all in his garage,” said Mr. Romero, who is married to Ms. Hardiman. “Trunks, boxes, suitcases of stuff. There were boxes of photos and portfolio cases with original prints.”

The couple marveled at their find. Mr. Boenzi was unimpressed.

“What was I going to do, just keep it sitting in my garage?” he said. “Mary and Lee decided to do something about it. I shipped all the stuff from the garage to who knows where. What they’ve done with them, I don’t know.”

What they’ve done — along with a retired Times senior editor, Joe Vecchione — is scan, sort and catalog hundreds of images inside a Yonkers loft. This week, “Vintage Boenzi” goes on exhibit in Manhattan at the Jadite Galleries, which its organizers hope will whet the public’s appetite for more of Mr. Boenzi’s work.

Some of the images were part of larger stories or breaking news events. Many others were the kind of one-off day shots that brightened the paper and helped cement his reputation as a singular talent.

Neal Boenzi/The New York Times

“I think Boenzi is one of the best photographers who ever walked through the doors of The New York Times,” said Nancy Lee, his former editor and now vice president and executive editor of The New York Times News Service.

Born in Brooklyn 88 years ago next week, Mr. Boenzi dropped out of college to serve in the Marine Corps during World War II. He returned stateside in 1946 and landed a job as an office boy at The Times, where he soon became a lab assistant. He attended photo school — briefly.

“I thought it was a complete waste of time,” he said. “I just listened to the old-timers at the paper. I learned more from them and the printers in the lab. I learned more from Ernie Sisto.”

In 1955, he was promoted to staff photographer. Using a Speed Graphic in his early days, he learned to work economically.

“Don’t forget, we were using film holders and you had two sheets in each,” he recalled. “The smart thing to do, when you got to an accident or anything, was to take a general view. Then, you moved in closer as you can.”

He continued to work with that kind of economy even after switching to 35-millimeter. Several of his former editors recalled how Mr. Boenzi could cover an assignment with only a handful of frames. One day, when given three “lousy” assignments, he did them all on a single 36-exposure roll.

“He could get something in six frames,” Ms. Lee said. “I’d wonder why he didn’t take any more than that and he’d say, ‘Because I didn’t need to.’ And sure enough, he’d have six frames and five would be usable. He was astonishing in his economy.”

That also applied to his equipment — he liked to travel lightly, with one Leica and two lenses.

“I never believed in having three cameras around my neck because I figure I’d strangle myself deciding which one to pick up,” Mr. Boenzi said. “If you got three cameras around your neck you’re obvious to everyone around you. I’ve tried putting my camera under my shirt with just a lens sticking out, to try and get people when they’re relaxed or off-guard. Then again, I was never a paparazzi type to run after things.”

That was because, Mr. Romero said, he was always thinking — and anticipating.

“He was an intelligent photographer with the eye of an artist,” Mr. Romero said. “He could make something from nothing. And he had a sense of anticipation. He could understand the potential of a situation.”

Consider one assignment when he went to a car show and encountered a model posing next to a lion (Slide 10).

“He said, ‘This is never a good idea,’ so he hung around for a while,” Mr. Romero said. “Sure enough, the lion attacked the girl.”

The New York Times

Another image from the mid-1960s captures a remarkable moment during a South Bronx fire, where firefighters are scrambling away from a collapsing wall (Slide 1). Mr. Boenzi, who like many staff members in that era could often be found regaling all and sundry at Gough’s bar on 43rd Street, was matter of fact about how he could stay put while others ran.

“That was after two martinis at Gough’s,” he said. “I didn’t have enough sense to run away. All I know is my reaction time had slowed down.”

His admirers aren’t letting him off that easily.

“These days everybody’s a photographer,” Mr. Romero said. “But for his generation, you had to know how to operate those machines. You had to wait for the moment and you had to make a decision.”

For someone who did not to set out to be a photographer, Mr. Boenzi did pretty well, and then some.

“My mother used to say, ‘Don’t ever let anybody tell you about the good old days.’ They were horrible, trying to feed seven people on a dollar a day,” he said. “My dad was a master plumber who couldn’t find work. He did tell me, ‘Don’t ever put yourself in a position of having to beg for a job.’ I earned my living with my index finger.”

The New York Times

“Vintage Boenzi” opens Wednesday at the Jadite Galleries in Manhattan and will be on view through Nov. 27.

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