If one function of photography, as Susan Sontag argued long ago, is to uncover new kinds of beauty, the Bechers have found it in unusual places. Judging from the MoMA exhibition, one might reasonably surmise that their favorite American city is Gary, Ind., with Pittsburgh a close second. On the train out of New York, I found myself scanning the countryside for industrial forms. There were the ubiquitous wooden water towers sprouting like mushrooms from Manhattan tenements—the Bechers themselves included one of these, with the World Trade Center towers in background haze, among their water towers. But it wasn't until my Metro-North train lurched into Bridgeport, Conn., that I was rewarded by a string of old factories along the harbor, with cooling towers and loading docks. Bridgeport—poor, beaten-down, and bedraggled Bridgeport—never looked so beautiful.