The Brooklynites

July 18th, 2006 by Alex

Found via New York blog Gothamist, a project by two photographers who sought to document Brooklyn through the people who live in it, whether they’re famous, infamous, or just your average Brooklynite. (Everyone has a story.) They’ve brought Steve Buscemi back to the apartment where he grew up, gone out to the hot dog vendors on Coney Island and talked to hipsters in Williamsburg.

They explain:

For all the talk about how the city of Brooklyn is a place where the sinewy roots of a nation grew, it’s the sky that you first feel when you enter this borough. Driving over rivers, exiting the dimness of the subway on stone stairs-you enter-and it’s as if someone took an infinite, finely-honed, silver scythe and lopped off the concrete and steel to take back the firmament. An enormous sky broods each day, like a massive pestle, crushing the ingredients and rituals of hundreds of cultures into a mortar made of tar, grass, trees and iron.

Since June of 2004, we have been photographing and interviewing every type of person from nearly every neighborhood in the borough (we plan to include all neighborhoods). We approach people in the street who are intriguing. People whose work and lives we admire. People who are known to be proud Brooklynites. We usually ask the subjects to choose a location in Brooklyn that has some meaning to them. Anthony conducts a brief interview, asking the subject what they think makes Brooklyn special and then Seth completes a photo shoot.

 
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