at 28th Street in New York's flower district. The broken window became his focal point. Smith wrote to Ansel Adams: ’Always there is the window ... and I breathe and smile and quicken and languish in appreciation of it, the proscenium arch with me on the third stage looking through it, down and up and bent along the sides and the whole audience in performance down before me, an everchanging pandemonium of delicate details and habitual rhythms.’ LIFE published portions of this work, ‘As From My Window I Sometimes Glance’, under the headline ‘Drama Beneath a City Window’ in 1958, and in its 1978 retrospective book Great Photographic Essays from LIFE. Befitting the theme of the unexpected, this image was unlike any of the others: Smith was at the window observing a police car parked in front of the flower shop across the street. Suddenly, the motionless scene became dynamic. The LIFE caption read: ‘Bursting from the florist's in what was probably her Communion dress, the girl seemed a Dresden figurine come alive. Amid [the] city's tired things — ashcan, hydrant, battered flower stands — she became a creature of lovely fantasy.’ Smith reflected: 'For the moment, she took over the scene. Everyone turned to look at her.' The caption added: ‘Then she was gone.’ But surely not forgotten.” – Kevin Eugene Smith, Estate of W. Eugene Smith © W. Eugene Smith | Magnum Photos