Photography: Exhibitions at Staten Island's Alice Austen House Museum, Amador Gallery's Japanese Photography Show, More - WSJ.com

Vinnie Amesse/Alice Austen House

Vinnie Amesse's 'Icy roads cause crash, no injuries; West Brighton; East Raleigh Avenue, Feb. 14, 1987' at Staten Island's Alice Austen House Museum.

Rear View: Our Life With Cars, Photographs From The Staten Island Advance Archives

Alice Austen House Museum

2 Hylan Blvd., Staten Island

(718) 816-4506

Through July 5

Low-density housing and sporadic public transportation make Staten Island's car culture more typical of the rest of America than that of the other four boroughs of New York City. It is therefore not surprising that so many of the images in the Austen House exhibition, drawn from the archives of a local newspaper, show automobiles involved in criminal activity: getaway cars, stolen cars, cars where the body was found, and—inevitably—cop cars. There are pictures of car crashes on icy suburban streets, of long lines of stalled cars backed up at the toll plazas on holiday weekends, of malevolent potholes, and of a bride and groom in their tuxedo and gown shoveling out their snowbound car. Several of the prints have crop marks showing where the picture would be trimmed before being published, reminding us that these are news photos; local news, but news.

Steve Zaffarano's "Thomas Camerlengo is taken from the 120 Precinct stationhouse to his arraignment last week on charges of murdering and dismembering his parents, July 3, 1990" has the no-nonsense style we expect of good photojournalism, and would certainly have interested islanders who knew Thomas or his late folks. Tony Carannante's "Cars creep through flood waters on Victory Boulevard in Willowbrook, July 27, 1991" was probably a familiar sight for many. No further comment is needed for Barry G. Schwartz's "And the heat goes on, as motorists' tempers flare during this monumental traffic jam on the Staten Island Expressway; The Cause: repairs; The reason: improvement. Aug. 4, 1972."