In January 1955, celebrated photographer W. Eugene Smith quit his longtime job atLife magazine. In search of greater freedom and artistic license, he accepted a three-week freelance assignment in Pittsburgh that turned into a four-year obsession and, in the end, remained unfinished.

In 1957, he moved out of the home he shared with his wife and four children in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and into a dilapidated, five-story loft building at 821 Sixth Avenue (between 28th and 29th streets) in New York City’s wholesale flower district. The building was a late-night haunt of musicians, including some of the biggest names in jazz—Charles Mingus, Zoot Sims, Bill Evans, and Thelonious Monk among them—and countless fascinating, underground characters. As his epic Pittsburgh project broke down, Smith found solace in the chaotic, somnambulistic world of the loft and its artists.