People on the Streets

New York was a different animal in the 90s, pre-Giuliani police occupation and rent destabilization. I was young, the streets were free and I had a dope public high school photography teacher who would give me free film as long as it was shot by morning. He knew I was a street kid, and the early AM and the LES was my playground. There was a beat, a culture of anything goes and I wanted to capture its soul. I ran with skaters, punks and drug dealers - just kids looking to escape one thing or another, and hustling to survive. These photographs have sat in a box for 20 years and it has been a cathartic experience giving them light again. This is a portrait of that unique space in time when being a New Yorker meant you knew how to navigate people, places and times when it wasn't all so peachy.