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East
4th Street |
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When I first approached the Lower East Side with Ed
Fausty, I had the sense of the neighborhood as a rather separate part
of Manhattan located off the main avenues in the shadow of Wall Street's
towers. Today, I feel that it is more integrated into the city as
a whole.
Barriers have come down over the past couple of decades. Some of that
can be attributed to gentrification, but compared with surrounding
areas the Lower East Side is still a gritty, economically precarious,
place. While newcomers may find the area almost unaffordable, thousands
continue to live in low income projects and in rent controlled tenement
apartments.
There are other less easily defined factors at work, and locating
those unknown qualities, is at the heart of why I am photographing
the neighborhood anew. The horrific destruction of the nearby World
Trade Center five years ago seemed to stop time on the Lower East
Side—and throughout the city. But it strikes me now, as I continue
to photograph the neighborhood, that time and the pace of change has
accelerated since then, and that the future is rushing in to a place
known more for the slow resonance of its history. |
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