PUBLISHED WORK
A Gentrified Mind? Ask the Nomad Junkie
A Punk Rock band was an amped backdrop to a riveting poetic monologue that ripped into the air and put gentrification in a 50-minute choke-hold. Gentrified Minds (the NY Horror, Volume 2) is a protest
If You Build It, Will They Come?
It's not uncommon for withering brown bananas to lay limp on the counter of my local bodega; or for the often-sticky floors to claim the soles of my shoes; or for the shelves to hold
An Honest Look at Bed-Stuy
One photographer allows his lens to enunciate the meaning of Bedford-Stuyvesant, where the rounded brown belly of a pregnant mother speaks of the future, Muslim women adorned in burkas speak about faith, and the Egyptian
Bed-Stuy’s Changing Fabric: More Color But Less Cover?
As watchmen of the community, Bed-Stuy natives are the best narrators of gentrification’s outcomes. Two of the first things they point to are the disappearance of familiar faces and a shift in the neighborhood’s cultural
Something Gained, Something Lost on Fulton Street
A Trinidadian man in the health food store tips his hat and says, “good night empress;” a Senegalese girl in the fabric store points me to a print she’s sure I’ll love; and further along
Demographic Shifts, Police Presence Increases
From my early days as a wide-eyed Bed-Stuy newbie, I recall the brigade of police officers that manned the street corners daily. Clad in blue, with their batons resting and guns holstered, they said, “We
Demographic Displacement: Fact or Fiction?
Plowing through an abundant amount of literature, I stumbled upon an interesting piece of scholarship that casted a different light on gentrification’s most notorious offspring: Displacement. As an influx of wealthier residents - and the
A Dirty Word?
While mulling over my vision for the future of this column, an associate of mine, who we’ll call "Jim," asked to tag along as my photographer. I immediately thought of all the powerful images he