A Legend In Her Own Right: Photographer Kate Simon

By Bill Kleppel

The music we fall in love with, the books we read, the art that draws us in, can guide us in our development as human beings; to understand who we are, and to make sense of life itself.

But we don’t just absorb sounds, words, and objects to store like food.

We want to know more about the artists we discover; to learn about their lives, the movements they help create…We want to see them.

The creative achievements from Bob Marley, Madonna, The Clash, William Burroughs, Patti Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, and others, straddle so many genres. They’re so disparate from each other, yet they cover a great expanse of modern art and culture at the same time.

When you think of these legends, specific images immediately come to the surface; so familiar to us, they’ve been seared into our brains.

What many of these artists’ have in common is this...

The impressions of them, stored in your mind, were created by the legendary, immensely talented photographer, Kate Simon.

…which, or course, brings me back to Poughkeepsie.

Not only is Kate Simon from our city, she was born across the street from the Adriance Memorial Library! The medical practice of her father, Dr. Samuel Simon, was located at 94 Market Street for decades.

Since her grandfather, Isaac Simon, arrived here from Russia in 1910, the family embraced Poughkeepsie, and did so for the rest of the twentieth century and beyond.

…I think that it’s time for Poughkeepsie to embrace Simon and her family back.

Sam and Judy Simon

Judith Kay Greenwald was born in New York City. Judy, as she was known, was a graduate of New York University in 1940. She attained a master’s degree from Columbia University in 1941. Samuel and Judy were married at the Hotel Pierre on East 61 Street in New York City on May 23, 1943.

Samuel Simon had been commissioned into the army before their marriage in June of 1942. He was eventually sent overseas and served in the Army Medical Corps in World War II within the European Theater of Operations. He was on hand for the invasion of Normandy and the Battle of the Bulge, and took part in the liberation of concentration camps.

He returned to the United States to resume his practice at 94 Market Street in 1946. Sam became a prominent surgeon at both Vassar and St. Francis Hospitals in Poughkeepsie. He was the head of urology at Vassar Hospital, and eventually became chief of staff at St. Francis as well.

Judy was involved in various community organizations, including the local chapter of the American Association of University Woman (AAUW). Present members of AAUW are frequent visitors to the Adriance Local History Rooms today!

Kate Simon and Poughkeepsie

Dr. Simon was also a tennis fanatic who played every day on the courts of Kenyon Hall at Vassar College. Kate would accompany him to Vassar quite frequently. She had a key to the university’s pool, and would swim there constantly. Kate was a Junior Olympian class swimmer.

Sam was also an avid chess player. The Mid-Hudson Chess Club would hold meetings at the Simon family home at 161 Academy Street. As a kid, Kate stumbled upon chess games in the basement with hundreds of men packed into the room, positioned across the table from each other, chess clocks ticking.

Another of his passions was photography. Kate had really taken to this hobby, and Sam was happy to introduce her to it. He would take Kate to the Arax Camera Store at 388 Main Street (the store was founded in 1912). Sam bought Kate her first Polaroid camera at Arax. While teaching Kate, Sam showed her photos he’d taken during World War II, including pictures of the Holocaust, which had a profound effect on her.

I recently spoke to Kate by phone, and she had plenty of memories of growing up in Poughkeepsie. She went to Vassar Nursery School and the Poughkeepsie Day School when it was located on Hooker Avenue. She went to Krieger Elementary, and graduated from Poughkeepsie High School in 1969 (her Dad graduated from Poughkeepsie High School in 1929).

She remembers buying candy at Luckey, Platt, & Co., going to Wallace’s, and M & M’s Army and Navy Store at 460 Main Street. Her mom would take all the kids to Warshaw Shoes at 350 Main Street (the Warshaw’s were family friends). Her dad would take her to Daniel’s Jewelry Store. She also enjoyed going to the Roya Currie Dance Center on Raymond Avenue.

She’d spend time at Sandy’s Luncheonette, and used to love going to Café Aurora. “It was its own universe… something straight out of Goodfellas.” I brought Café Aurora up to some of my own colleagues, and they had their own great memories of the place. It was sad for them to see it close around the time of the Covid pandemic.

The Bardavon was primarily a movie theatre from the 1930’s through the 1970’s. Kate remembers going to see Mutiny on the Bounty, starring Marlon Brando and Richard Harris, when it premiered in 1962.

To this day, Kate has friends and family in the Poughkeepsie area. During her teen years, she had many friends in Millbrook as well. They’d meet up and hang out at the Innisfree Gardens, and would occasionally “get up to trouble there.”  One of them was Jack Leary, the son of Timothy Leary, the psychologist and counterculture figure who promoted psychedelic drug use. She’d occasionally freak out her Mom by telling her that she was going to Millbrook to hang out with Jack at the Castalia Foundation, a psychedelic educational group.

The Adriance Memorial Library was significant to Kate and her whole family. It was ever present in their lives, especially considering its proximity to Dr. Simon’s offices. All of the Simon kids (Paul, Bob, Greg, and Kate) and their parents, spent plenty of time here.

She still has what was in her Dad’s wallet on the day he died. It included family photos and his library card.

Kate’s father died on October 30, 1968, when she was 16 years old. For a short time after his death, the family moved back to 94 Market Street until they found another house in Poughkeepsie. Kate was a senior in high school, and said she moved back to 94 Market as a “1969 hippie.”

Leaving Poughkeepsie

The year she graduated, Kate won a Humanities Award for a speech she had given on the poet William Wordsworth ($50). She was accepted into George Washington University’s Corcoran School of the Arts & Design in Washington, D.C.. Kate said her mom wanted her to go to Vassar College, but in 1969, “That was the last thing on my mind.”

Kate spent a few years at GWU. She studied a semester in Paris (where she had a chance encounter with Jim Morrison two months before his death; Jim helped Kate with her term paper on Eugene O’Neill’s play A Long Day’s Journey Into Night). During her Paris semester, she also visited London and loved it.

Kate made the decision to drop out of school and get a job in London. Her mother was surprisingly good about it, so she ended up in the United Kingdom in 1973.

London Years

Kate’s first job was as an assistant at the Photographers’ Gallery on Great Newport Street in London. This is where she came to know iconic photographers like Cecil Beaton, David Hurn, David Bailey, Josef Koudelka, and Leonard Freed.

Kate quickly recognized that the field of photography surrounding the UK music scene was frenetic and lucrative. She began taking photos of musicians who were touring or living in London. Her first significant gig was for a publication called Disc. She showed a shot she’d taken of Elton John to the art director of the magazine. This helped open the door to an entire industry.

She saw everyone. Americans would come to London and perform. She’d shoot James Brown during one of his shows, and then would be at Rod Stewart’s house in Windsor the next day, taking photos of him. The next day it could be a visit to see Ronnie Wood of the Rolling Stones, or taking shots of Queen. She had access to the Rolling Stones, David Bowie, The Who, Led Zeppelin, and more.

In 1975, Kate became a staff photographer for the music weekly Sounds. She first saw Bob Marley and the Wailers that year at one of their concerts at the Lyceum Theater in London. She was introduced to Marley after the show. This interaction would begin a working relationship that would change her life.

Kate documented this era, from the night at the Lyceum to the early 1980’s, in her seminal book Bob Marley: Rebel Music & Roots Reggae. It wonderfully encapsulates Bob Marley’s career, as well as the influential scope of Reggae music that radiated from Jamaica to the rest of the world.

From Bob Marley: Rebel Music & Roots Reggae by Kate Simon:

“I was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. As a kid, I was into climbing trees and riding bikes; and I was very into my father being a photographer. He was a medical doctor, but he loved taking photographs. Oddly enough, the camera I started my career with, he purchased in Jamaica the year of his death.”

Kate’s career began to take on a more global perspective. She did continue to work in England until 1978 and captured the burgeoning punk rock scene there. She developed many lasting relationships and enduring friendships during this time. One of her photos was used for the Clash’s debut album in 1977.

I’d heard an interview with Kate discussing a photograph she’d taken of Joe Strummer of the Clash. He was off stage and sleeping in a room atop two chairs. It was 1978, and the Clash was touring incessantly. Even Kate told them they should take a break.

I love the photo. It presents Strummer, an idol to me and many of my friends growing up, as a real person. Joe was exhausted. Looking at the photo, you can feel how uncomfortable those chairs were. You can smell the stale beer, spent cigarettes, and cheap food wafting from this image.

I was heartened to hear how Kate felt about both Bob Marley and Strummer. Essentially, Strummer was (like Marley), “…As good as you’d like to think about him and appreciate him; you were on the right track.” She also added, “Neither of them were doing anything to make people love them, except for being who they were.”

Joe Strummer passed away in 2002. She’s still friends with the Clash’s former bass player, Paul Simonon. He was a skilled artist, without a doubt, and it seemed like he couldn’t take a bad picture.

Kate Simon: He was like James Dean that way.

Bill Kleppel: Yes. A punk rock James Dean.

KS: It’s inherent in some people…they just know how to work with a photographer. You don’t want someone to give you their game face; you want it to be a collaboration. Some people just know what the camera really needs. Paul Simonon knew; William Burroughs knew… It's really gratifying for both the photographer and the subject… Iggy Pop was the same way. Photos can come out alright even if a person is putting on a front or posing. But the truth just resonates.

Kate Simon has this consistency throughout all of her work. I’d like to think that living in Poughkeepsie can make an indelible mark on the extraordinary talent of an artist like Simon.

Many of her photos don’t have a glossy sheen. The veneer is torn off to see the real beauty underneath; or the true essence of her subjects. Her photo of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe below is in the permanent collection at the Smithsonian. The image also appears in Patti’s memoir Just Kids Illustrated.

Kate had a special working relationship with the author William Burroughs.

She once met William at his home in Lawrence, Kansas. He’d recently visited his friend, the writer Paul Bowles, in Morocco. He had a great time. They’d reminisced about old friends.

William said, “They are all dead now.”

“I was young, and didn’t understand this that much, but now I do,” Kate reflected.

She used to shoot Burroughs frequently in New York City at his legendary residence named the Bunker. The apartment was a full floor with no windows located in the basement of a nineteenth century era YMCA building on the Lower East Side.

Kate Simon is still working, and collaborating with other artists. Her art is being displayed, some in permanent collections, around the world.

Her mother eventually moved back to New York when Kate was still living overseas. When we spoke again about her past in Poughkeepsie, she told me that she still missed it.

“I wasn’t through with Poughkeepsie.” She really felt like Poughkeepsie was home, regardless of where she was. “It’s probably true of every person, that where they grew up has a special place in their memories.”

It was a joy speaking to Kate about her life, her art, and the place she still feels has a home in her heart. She also spoke of her admiration for her grandfather, Isaac Simon. This is a man who entered compulsory service in the Russian Army under Czar Alexander in the nineteenth century, then crossed the Atlantic and lived in Poughkeepsie as a pillar of its Jewish community until he passed away at the age of 102 in 1972!

I mentioned to her that it would be great if we could get a historic plaque in front of 94 Market Street. She told me, “This is what I want. Whenever people talk about Poughkeepsie, they mention Billy Name (who I knew), Ed Wood, and Lee Miller… I want them to add Kate Simon to this list.”

Considering how much the Simon family contributed to the city, and to society in general, it would be nice to name a street after them.

For more on Kate Simon, and to see some of her remarkable work, please visit: https://www.katesimonphotography.com, or follow her on Instagram:  @katesimon