He settled in the West Village in 1951 and then on Central Park West in 1955. From 1970 to 1980 he taught photography at Cooper Union. In 1979 he moved both his residence and studio along with his archive of hundreds of thousands of images, to Long Island City. He continued to spend his summers in Rome. He married Anja Kyllikki (1939–2013), a Finnish model, in 1963. They had two sons and separated in 1979. They met when Vaccaro was shooting a series about Marimekko for "Life".