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"I worked so hard raising five kids, that I was not about to let heroin take one of them," Ms. Montenegro said. "I guess it was more spiritual than anything else, so I kept whatever else of him I could. I just collected this stuff and kept it there."
Protesting the making of the 1981 movie “Fort Apache, the Bronx.”
At the making of "Fort Apache, The Bronx," Paul Newman glared at Mr. Conzo while a production assistant tried to block the shot.
Ray Barreto, Tito Puente, Machito, Joe Quijano, Charlie Palmeri and Johnny Pacheco at Beau's Restaurant in 1980.
That stuff - in shoe boxes and closets - stayed stashed during several attempts at going clean, including a stint in the Army. By 1991, however, it all fell apart: Mr. Conzo was arrested for stealing food.
"Here I was, I came from a good family, a political family," he said. "I never thought I was an addict because I always had a job. And here I am, a junkie skell in jail."
He was ordered to go into treatment, where he learned how to be an emergency medical technician. When he got out, he landed a job with the city, a job he still has, working a Fire Department ambulance in the very neighborhood where he used to run around with the Cold Crush Brothers. In time he learned that his mother had saved his negatives. He went out and started taking pictures again, too.
About two years ago, a friend of his from the Cold Crush Brothers introduced him to Johan Kugelberg, a European collector interested in hip-hop's early days, who arranged for a London exhibit earlier this year.
"Nobody has seen photographs like this from the early jams," Mr. Conzo said. His father is as proud as he is surprised.
"Here was this kid who used to be my little tail," his father said. "He met all these guys. You name it, he got them: Tito, Celia, Willie Bobo, Rita Moreno. Little did I know this kid was taking pictures of rap in the Bronx. I'm so proud of him, it ain't funny."
His father has the kind of no-nonsense gravelly voice that underscores the "ain't funny" part.
"Joey was there when this sucker was born," he said. "Anybody can have pictures of old celebrities. You got to say, damn, that's a mind-blower that he saw this thing go from nothing to what it is today."
His son speaks with a quiet warmth about how this all turned out. Given his past, he is on bonus time right now. And even though he shoots for a London-based magazine, he has no plans to quit his city job. Nor does he plan to settle scores with those people who used his old photos in books and movies without so much as a credit.
"I'm 42; my days of chasing anything are over," he said. "Call it cocky. Call it humble. That's how I am. This, to me, is gravy."
It is, he said, not just where he's from, but where he's at.
"When I'm gone from this world, I hope my grandchildren can go to a library and see Joe Conzo images," he said. "I am carrying on in the legacy of my grandmother, photographing music and the community. I don't think I'll get rich off this. But having this legacy is worth more than money."