great photos...

Joe Conzo Jr. clocked his 15 minutes of fame one-sixtieth of a second at a time. As a teenager, his friends in the Cold Crush Brothers invited him to tag along to photograph the pioneering days of hip-hop. His family's connections in community activism and Latin music led him to chronicle the giants of salsa and the South Bronx.

Those thousands of images almost vanished, lost except in the memories of the lucky few who witnessed many of the fabled rap battles that took place at school gymnasiums and neighborhood discos.

But Joe Conzo Jr. a k a Joey Kane, lives on, and his work does, too. His mother, Lorraine Montenegro, saved his negatives when he could barely save himself from drugs. Thanks to her, and some friendships from the days when Puma sneakers were the epitome of street fashion, Mr. Conzo's photographic record of the Bronx in the 1970's and 1980's is now being hailed as a unique contribution to that era's history.