Former East Village activist and photographer John Penley gave his photo archives sometime ago to New York University’s Tamiment Library. During years documenting the Downtown scene, Penley shot countless luminaries, the likes of drug guru Timothy Leary at the former Collective Unconscious on the Lower East Side, below, and performance artist Karen Finley at a Refuse & Resist! benefit at the former Palladium on E. 14th St., above, today an N.Y.U. dorm. Tamiment focuses on radical and left history. Penley reported that N.Y.U. Bobst Library, at 70 Washington Square South, is currently consolidating all six of its special-collections libraries, of which Tamiment is one — including photos, artwork and correspondence — onto one floor.
