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Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health;
Physic himself must fade.
All things to end are made,
The plague full swift goes by;
I am sick, I must die.
Lord, have mercy on us!
Thomas Nashe 1592
Full book preview here.
On March 20, 2020, Governor Cuomo of New York state announced a lockdown and a regime of social distancing to combat the Covid-19 pandemic. Essential errands and walking for recreation were exempted from the order. For four weeks I wandered with my camera through the empty streets of Williamsburg, Brooklyn venturing into every corner of this sprawling quarter of the city.
In Time of Plague is a portrait of Williamsburg – a dynamic place that conjures many different preconceptions – sometimes inaccurate. Despite a wave of gentrification, especially on the Manhattan side of the neighborhood, it remains a highly diverse part of New York. The juxtapositions of new and old, rich and poor, residential and industrial, are often jarring, unexpected. Graffiti seems to have taken over every untended surface. But there is a rough beauty here found camouflaged in an often disjunctive and broken urban landscape.
I have witnessed this city’s ups and down for almost five decades – the bankrupt 70s, AIDs in the 80s, 9/11, Hurricane Sandy, and the city’s recent economic ascendance. This Spring, with the trees bursting into bloom, the city that never sleeps came to an almost unthinkable halt. These photographs document that moment when time seemed to freeze, when the crowds dispersed, when the stage was left vacant, and, for once, the show did not go on.
$50.00 (20 books available)
8"x11" softcover
first edition, signed
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