Hubert's Museum (or Hubert's Flea Circus, or Hubert's Sideshow) was a year-round, indoor sideshow located in Times Square. Opened in 1926 and closing in 1965, the entertainment at Hubert's was a mixture of "born freaks" and "made freaks."
By the time that photographer Diane Arbus started hanging out there, the sideshow at Hubert's had been relegated to the seedy basement of the building. Visitors were shuttled from one act to the next, forced to pay for each unusual curiosity.
Arbus met many of her photograph subjects here, spending time to get to know them individually. Eddie Carmel (from Arbus's A Jewish Giant at Home with His Parents in The Bronx, N.Y. 1970) was the World's Tallest Cowboy at Hubert's. Andy Ratoucheff (from Arbus's Russian midget friends in a living room on 100th Street, N.Y.C., 1963) performed as Andy Potato Chips at Hubert's.
The "freaks" there were friends- colleagues in the entertainment business who supported each other.
