This intimate street scene, captured by Saul Leiter in 1956, embodies the photographer's unique vision of Manhattan as a place of poetic quietude amid urban energy.

The image presents a dreamlike tableau where a vintage taxi emerges from heavy snowfall, its yellow-green form creating a luminous focal point against the muted winter palette. A solitary figure with a black umbrella moves through the storm, becoming part of Leiter's characteristic narrative of human presence without prominence.

New York in 1956 was experiencing the height of its post-war economic boom, transforming into a modern metropolis of steel and glass.

Yet Leiter found profound beauty in moments of stillness and contemplation. His Manhattan was not the harsh, documentary reality captured by contemporaries like Robert Frank, but rather an impressionistic urban pastoral that revealed poetry in everyday moments.

Working from his East Village apartment on East 10th Street, Leiter rarely ventured more than a few blocks from his neighborhood to create his extraordinary body of work. He famously observed that "mysterious things happen in familiar places" and believed there was no need to "run to the other end of the world" to find compelling subjects.

Leiter's technique demonstrates his painter's sensibility, using falling snow as both atmospheric element and compositional device. The soft focus and muted tones create an almost abstract quality, while careful layering of elements reveals his sophisticated understanding of photographic space. This approach placed him outside mainstream 1950s street photography, establishing him as a pioneer whose work gained full recognition only decades later.

The image captures winter in mid-century Manhattan, when the city's character was defined by human-scale buildings, neighborhood intimacy, and spontaneous street life that Leiter transformed into visual poetry.