Born in Wisconsin and raised and educated in New Mexico, Caleb Michael Smith moved to New York City in 2000, becoming an integral member of Columbia University’s Department of Art History and Archaeology. From July 2009 onwards, as the Director of the Media Center for Art History, Caleb actively participated in shaping the Center’s global media projects. Through his unique vision and collaborative leadership style he championed the adoption and use of new approaches, resources, and technologies for art historical pedagogy and research.
Concurrently, Caleb pursued his longstanding interest in the urban environment, particularly of the city he called home and considered a “celebrity.” Caleb famously and systematically walked every street in Manhattan between 2002 and 2004, documenting the 500-mile walk through photography and his own brand of accessible, humorous, and engaging commentary at newyorkcitywalk.com. This project can be understood in many ways: as a two-year-long performance piece; as an innovative blog; as a long and considered study of New York’s urbanscape, present and past, including archival research; or as a project akin to the Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s engagement with the United States in the 1950s, documented in the monograph, The Americans. It was an attempt by a transplant, an outsider, to describe, understand, and know his habitat, and what better way to do so than via the body and its senses. What better way to know every stoop, lamppost, diner, park bench, and building than through the deliberate process of walking, and thus literally connecting with the inhabited city. Caleb saw himself as an “intrepid urban explorer.” It is no wonder, then, that he developed a deep and infectious love for New York, sharing it with others through the walking tours he conducted for Big Onion Tours and Columbia University courses as well as informally. He also co-taught the very popular New York: Architecture and Cultural History during Columbia’s summer session. His photographs are part of the New York Historical Society’s collection and the Museum of the City of New York’s recent exhibition The Greatest Grid. As a project editor for The Encyclopedia of New York City, 2nd edition, he contributed numerous entries including, significantly, the one on Broadway. Caleb was fascinated by Broadway’s ability to function as the main street in New York City even as it simultaneously represented a multifaceted historical monument and a challenging opportunity for hiking hiding in plain sight within the dense urban environment.
Caleb’s curiosity about urban worlds and the ways in which they came to be and the ways in which they function did not end with New York. He was equally excited by the 8th century Chalukyan capital Pattadakal in India, colonial-period Bombay, the side streets and markets of old Bangkok, and the ancient Khmer city Angkor, to name some of his recent explorations outside the United States. His commitment to architectural preservation led him to pursue and propose several upcoming projects such as the documentation of ancient sites in northern Iraq, the Byzantine and Ottoman period monuments in Istanbul, and the Gothic buildings of Spain. These and other projects, particularly Caleb’s Broadway film project, will be continued with the support of friends and colleagues.
Caleb Smith Memorial Walk 