Stanley Kubrick's New York: Stunning photos show the 1940s subway system through the eyes of a Hollywood master



Legendary and infamous film director Stanley Kubrick was sent out by LOOK magazine in New York City to capture the iconic subway system in 1946.

The mind behind cinema classics like The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, and A Clockwork Orange returned with stunning shots that truly show the essence of a city in an era of change.

A couple kisses beside a passed out drunk. A man speaks into a pay phone with eyes full of suspicion.

Just as his movies have both thrilled and haunted movie goers for decades, so are Kubrick's photos of 1940s New York City an ode to the Big Apple's ability to be at once eerie and lovely.

Kubrick's subway photos are among a display at the Museum of the City of New York entitled Willing To Be Lucky: Ambitious New Yorkers in the Pages of LOOK Magazine.

Love and sadness: In Kubrick's 1940s New York City subway, love existed simultaneously with urban depravity

Conferring: While working for LOOK magazine in 1946, Kubrick struck out to capture the essence of the city's iconic subway system and its commuters

Read all about it: The resulting pictures form part of a Museum of the City of New York display entitled Willing To Be Lucky: Ambitious New Yorkers in the Pages of LOOK Magazine

Novel: Kubrick elicited some attention from his subjects in an era after escalators but well before the ubiquitous camera phone

Mind the gap? What appears to be a May-December romance buds on a platform beneath 47th street, snapped by a director known for both personal and professional intrigue

An old editor's mark mars an otherwise perfect rendering of women in hats heading to the outer boroughs in 1940s New York as a soldier stands idly by at left

Ethereal: Kubrick's subway passengers could easily be as imagined as the bar patrons seen by a hallucinating Jack Nicholson in The Shining

Gum shoe: The director gives a film noir twist to what was likely just a typical pay phone call...or was it?