The Original Ray's Pizza Restaurant-New York Pizza Project-NYCAll photos from the New York Pizza Project

Last summer, we rounded up six great urban photography projects that were going on, including those visiting every bodega in Manhattan, capturing the city’s disappearing neon signs, and a guy walking every street of NYC. Yesterday, another one came across our way: For the last three years, five friends have been visiting and documenting New York’s old-school pizza joints. For extra authenticity, all five are native New Yorkers. According to Ian Manheimer, a member of The New York Pizza Project, they’ve “been to over 100 of the most authentic shops in the City: talking to patrons and pizza makers, snapping photos…We like to say, it’s not about the food, it’s about everything else.”

Yesterday they launched their Kickstarter. Manheimer says, “The New York Pizza Project, ultimately, is a collection of those anecdotes and photographs in beautiful book form. There are some really beautiful stories in there that trace themes like: coming to America and starting new, the struggles of running a family business, and keeping up with a quickly gentrifying city.” They also made a pretty cool time lapse video for the Kickstarter campaign:

They’ve shared with Untapped Cities a sneak peak of additional photographs of these pizza joints you can’t find in their Kickstarter campaign but will be in the finished product:

Lorenzo-New-Town-Pizza-New York Pizza Project-NYC

Loule and Ehrle's Pizza-New York Pizza Project-NYC

New York Pizza Project-NYC-4

Sacco Pizza-New York Pizza Project-NYC

New York Pizza Project-NYC-2

Amore's Pizziera-New York Pizza Project-NYC

New York Pizza Project-NYC

New York Pizza Project-NYC-3

Joe's Pizza-New York Pizza Project-NYC

Support their Kickstarter here.