New Book Features Over 150 Photos Of First Season Of ‘Sesame Street’ Previously Not Published In U.S.

A new book, The Unseen Photos of Street Gang:  How We Got to Sesame Street, provides an exclusive look into previously unpublished photographs from the first season of Sesame Street and also features interviews with cast and crew.

Published to accompany HBO’s recent airing of the documentary Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street, it supplements the film’s exploration of the origins and legacy of the children’s series, and pays tribute to the enduring achievements of an ingenious group of artists, educators and television pioneers who believed that the values of equality, education and inclusion should not just be championed but also made available to all.

Featured in the book are over 150 behind-the-scenes photographs of Jim Henson, Will Lee, Loretta Long, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch and dozens of other pioneering puppeteers, animators, actors and Sesame Street Muppets taken by David Attie in March 1970 for Amerika, a Russian-language magazine distributed in the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The book’s author, Trevor Crafts, uses Attie’s photos to expand upon the film’s story of how show creator Joan Ganz Cooney, with Sesame Workshop cofounder Lloyd Morrisett, director Jon Stone and Muppet creator Jim Henson, took the values and goals of the civil rights movement and revolutionized children’s television.

David Attie’s son, Eli, an Emmy-winning TV writer and producer whose credits include The West Wing, House and Billions, wrote the book’s preface, while its afterword is by Sonia Manzano, who created the role of Maria on Sesame Street, for which she received a lifetime achievement Emmy Award in 2016.