Back to the '70s & '80s: A Look at Jill Friedman’s Street Cops
July 07, 2026
Riding Shotgun with the NYPD: Jill Freedman’s Unfiltered 1970s New York
In 1978, Jill Freedman embarked on a documentary photography project that would consume her life for the next several years. The result was Street Cops—a gritty, visual diary capturing life on both sides of the law. Turn any page, and you’re thrown right into the action: raw arrests, cops comforting victims after a street brawl, a dog being rescued, a somber police funeral, witness interviews, late-night paperwork, and adrenaline-fueled foot chases. This was the unfiltered, day-to-day reality of policing New York City back when crime ran rampant.Freedman wasn’t a native New Yorker; she arrived in the city in 1964 from Pittsburgh, where she was born in 1939. Before finding her calling as a powerhouse documentary photographer, she wore many hats—studying sociology, backpacking through Europe, singing in clubs, and writing advertising copy. When she finally picked up a camera, she approached it with the curiosity of an anthropologist. Over her career, she published seven books, but Street Cops (1982) remains a crown jewel in her legacy.The twist? Freedman absolutely detested cops. She was a natural rebel, always ready to challenge authority and push cultural boundaries, so nobody ever expected her to write about police officers with empathy. But after wrapping up her 1977 photobook Firehouse, she decided to dive headfirst into a four-year journey with the NYPD to see who these people really were. The police force was a notoriously tight-knit brotherhood, hard for outsiders to crack—but Freedman’s raw authenticity won them over.She spent long nights riding shotgun through the roughest neighborhoods of Alphabet City and Harlem, capturing shootings, muggings, fires, and violent crimes. Afterward, she’d head back to her Greenwich Village loft and spend hours hunched over in her darkroom. Freedman wanted to tell the story exactly as she lived it. In the preface to Street Cops, she wrote:"What I learned from cops is that there really are good guys and bad guys. Bad guys like to hurt people. Sometimes it’s better not to know too much, and sometimes you just can’t help it. This story was a tough one. I hate the violence we see on TV and in movies. I wanted to show it straight, without commercial breaks, in all its unglamorous misery. I also wanted to show the gentleness and compassion of the good guys, the ones who care and try to help. Both the good times and the bad."Jill Freedman lived in New York until her death in 2019. Friends remember her as a force of nature—relentless, fiercely independent, and incredibly funny. She was tough as nails, cursed like a sailor, loved her whiskey, and was known to complain that "weed just isn't the same as it was in the '70s." Freedman won people over with her brutal, refreshing honesty. She hid nothing about herself—and she hid nothing about the world she photographed. Street Cops is the ultimate proof of that.
