The studio where I live and work is on the edge of Bed-Stuy, a historically African-American neighborhood in Brooklyn probably best known outside of New York as the setting for Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing. It is to Brooklyn what Harlem is to Manhattan.
Over the years it’s also become home to large numbers of immigrants; originally from the American South, Latin America and the West Indies, and more recently from Africa and Haiti. It’s a very culturally diverse neighborhood where, unlike my previous apartment in Manhattan, I am the minority.
But that’s starting to change. The gentrification that’s occurred in many areas of Brooklyn is beginning to happen here. In the two and a half years I’ve been here I’ve already seen a big transformation. This street portrait project is an attempt to document the people of Fulton Street before the face of Bed-Stuy changes forever.
And personally, it is also a way for me, as a white person in an predominantly black neighborhood, to connect with the people in the community I live in, many of whom probably regard me as part of the gentrification.
