Chris Payne

New York City

Christopher Payne specializes in the documentation of America’s vanishing architecture and industrial landscape. Trained as an architect, he is the author of several books: New York’s Forgotten Substations: The Power Behind the Subway, Asylum: Inside the Closed World of State Mental Hospitals, and North Brother Island: The Last Unknown Place in New York City. Payne’s current work has veered away from the documentation of the obsolete towards a celebration of craftsmanship and manufacturing in the United States. In progress is a series about the American textile industry, and recently completed is Making Steinway: An American Workplace, a tour through the famous Steinway piano factory in Queens. Payne has been awarded grants from the Graham Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work has been featured in publications around the world and several times in the New York Times Magazine.