I am terribly grateful that after years of hard work on this project that I am surrounded with such wonderful, thoughtful and caring and super intuitive and bright photo friends and a great photo agency to boot. I also must thank the wonderful Zoe Strauss who referred Marisa Mazria Katz--the editor at Creative Time Report--to me last year when the hurricane hit the peninsula.
I plan to post an image a day on my blog from the Rockaways that I shot either before or after Hurricane Sandy hit the peninsula and forever changed the hearts and lives of those who lived out there.
Here is an excerpt from my piece on Creative Time Reports:
"Hurricane Sandy marked the abrupt and unplanned end of my 10-year project photographing the once-forgotten neighborhood of Rockaway Park, known to the locals as Rockaway Beach. I first came out to the boardwalk at Beach 116th Street in the summer of 2002. I stood outside the Sand Bar and was instantly mesmerized when I witnessed a bartender jump over a bar with a baseball bat in his hands, chasing a disruptive and unruly customer off the premises. As I looked around the bar at the patrons—a mix of disheveled, raucous regulars and sunburnt beachgoers guzzling down cheap beer from plastic cups—I immediately became enamored with a scene that appeared to be a hundred miles away from the gentrified and homogenized streets of Manhattan. The neighborhood felt untouched by time. There wasn’t one Starbucks to be found on the entire peninsula. I decided to return the next week with my camera."
And here is a photo that I previously published, but recently found in my collection. This was taken in 2008 in front of Gloria Manor adult home where two of the residents, a married couple who share the same room had just bought some soft serve ice cream from the Mr. Softee truck that arrived like clock work in the afternoon, parked outside and served ice cream to the residents.
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| "Ester and David at the Mr. Softee Truck", Summer 2008, Rockaways, NYC. ©Juliana Beasley |
