Ormond Gigli
Ormond Gigli’s famed 1960 “Girls in the Windows” photograph continues to inspire - more than 50 years later!
In a new documentary from The New Yorker (produced and directed by Cory Jacobs and Jason Schmidt), the above clips show Schmidt’s 2020 photo shoot re-creating the image with Ann Ballentine, the Brooklyn building that Ballentine owned, and Ballentine’s tenants - all artists connected through the creative fellowship of the building.
Ballentine bought the building in 1979 for approximately $60,000 and throughout her life declined to sell it to developers or to spike rents for her tenants. “Landlady” didn’t seem like the right moniker for Ballentine, and she remained the “fairy godmother / benevolent mayor” to the artists who made their creative homes with her, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine (when this photograph was taken).
The resulting photographic homage appeared on the September 2020 cover of InStyle magazine. Ballentine died in 2023, and the building was sold to developers in January 2025.