The poet Don Marquis, best known for “archy and mehitabel,” has an apostrophe in his poem “New York” to “My passionate city, my quivering town.” Anyone who spends time here comes to feel a proprietary relationship with the city, so Marquis’s use of the possessive pronoun is not extraordinary; “quivering,” however, is a singularly apt adjective. But is the quivering a result of animal excitement or spiritual ecstasy? Two collections of photographs of the city make me think it is probably both: The first is “Life of the City: New York Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art,” a book published by the museum, and the second is “New York: In Every Kind of Light,” a group exhibition of vintage photographs currently at the Keith de Lellis Gallery.

“Life of the City” is a brief anthology of some of the best-known images by some of the most brilliant photographers of the 20th century. Starting with Berenice Abbott and Diane Arbus at the beginning of the alphabet, going through Helen Levitt and Lisette Model in the middle, and on to Weegee and Gary Winogrand toward the end, the book is mostly about people. There are immigrants at Ellis Island, dancers at Studio 54, the Unity Athletic and Social Club Inc., in Harlem, and anonymous passersby in the storied streets. If not exactly quivering, none of these people is inert. Energy is what characterizes “Life of the City.”

The 50 black-and-white photographs at de Lellis are mostly of buildings, and the photographers are, by and large, little known. There is, for instance, a panorama shot of “Grand Central Station” (1911) showing that noble heap under construction, and it is credited to Anonymous. A picture of the “RCA Building” (1933) showing one of the Art Deco bas-reliefs is credited to Artist Unknown. Some of the pictures are attributed to firms, such as the Keystone View Co.’s “Flatiron Building” (1920) and Peyser & Patzig Inc.’s “Chrysler Building” (1929). But even if we don’t know the names of the people who tripped the shutter to take these pictures, we can tell they were very competent photographers.

Commercial photographic firms have long documented the construction of New York buildings. Their work provides an important record for the architects, contractors, and developers of their projects and, in case of legal problems, may be critical evidence. But the images are frequently interesting in themselves. The picture of the Chrysler building shows it nearly, but not quite, completed. It was taken from the west and from a high enough elevation for us to see the tower projecting upwards above its neighbors. The vertex, or spike, is in place, but there is still scaffolding around the nickel-steel crown, and the gorgeous eagles and other ornaments have not yet been installed. The sky is overcast, so none of the building is hidden in shadows although, beyond the East River, Queens is lost in haze. The unfinished building stands out dramatically in a way that must have made Walter P. Chrysler swell with pride.

Paul Woolf, an Englishman who established a minor reputation for himself in the 1930s with his pictures of buildings, is represented here by six works. In “City Symphony” (1935), he massed serried planes of buildings poking up through the urban smog. In “McGraw Hill Building From Roof of the Hotel Lincoln” (1936), he created a dramatic silhouette of Raymond Hood’s masterpiece at twilight. “George Washington Bridge” (1935) is a modernist close-up of two of the suspension cables. His iconic “Rockefeller Center at Night” (1936) was used for years on the cover of the menu in the Rainbow Room.

The Empire State Building figures in many photographs. There is a nighttime shot from 1940 by Fred Stein; a shot of the façade juxtaposed with a bishop’s crook streetlamp from 1939 by John Hatlem, and another with a different streetlamp from 1949 by Arthur Sasse. It is also seen backlit in Todd Webb’s “South From the Top of the RCA Building” (1945). But Weegee’s “Empire State Building” (1945) takes the cake: Lightning is crackling above the mast and the building seems to be listing to the left as if its foundation is starting to go.

William Richardson’s “Grand Central Station” (1929) shows light slanting in through the high windows to the cavernous interior, and Drahomir Ruzicka’s “Penn Station” ( 1925) is a study of its classic design. In these pictures and several others, one senses the photographers quivering in their thrill at focusing on such great subjects.

Paul Himmel’s “Brooklyn Bridge” (1950) is the last picture in the de Lellis exhibition and, at 40 by 60 inches, the largest. It is also the best-known image in the show. A solitary man in an overcoat and fedora leans on the iron railing of the bridge’s pedestrian walkway and looks out at the city. The man, the railing, and the vertical suspension cables are dark while the distant skyline is a lighter shade of gray, but the relationship between man and city is strong. The large size of the print let me notice something that had escaped me before: Rather than standing with both feet planted squarely on the walkway, the man has his right foot cocked around his left ankle. This is the gesture of a man who is tense, who is excited, who is quivering at the prospect of the great metropolis rising up majestically before him.

“Life of the City: New York Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art,” published by MoMA, 2007;

“New York: In Every Kind of Light,” at the Keith de Lellis Gallery through February 16 (1045 Madison Ave., #2, between 79th and 80th streets, 212-327-1482).