Posts from the “Brooklyn” Category

Larry Racioppo: Coney Island Baby

Posted on October 29, 2021

*Larry Racioppo. Palm Reading sign and the Thunderbolt rollercoaster, 1978.*

With its beach, boardwalk, and amusement park, Coney Island has long been the perfect escape from the stress of everyday life. South Brooklyn native Larry Racioppo and his extended family reveled in the pleasures of “America’s Playground” during his youth and teen years.

In the late 1960s, Racioppo enrolled in VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) and traveled to rural California, where he served two and a half years. He returned home in November 1970, with the dream of becoming a photographer.

In early 1971, Racioppo and a friend drove out to Coney Island to revisit his childhood stomping grounds — only to discover “Electric Eden” was on the brink of collapse. The once bustling boardwalk empire had become a ghost town. Abandoned buildings, burned out lots, neglect, disrepair, and white supremacist graffiti had brought seaside paradise to a standstill.

“Seeing the physical decline in my neighborhood and the city in general saddened me,” says Racioppo. “When I went to Coney Island I was struck by its emptiness. I saw that some attractions like the Tilyou Theater were closed not for the winter but for good.”

Read the Full Story at Huck

*Larry Racioppo. Young Boy in the Arcade, 1979.*

*Larry Racioppo. Stauch’s Baths with WARRIORS graffiti, 1979.*

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Huck, Photography

Larry Racioppo: Bowery Street

Posted on October 27, 2021

Girl with cotton candy, Fourth Avenue, 1974 © Larry Racioppo

While working as a cab driver, cameraman, waiter, photographer’s assistant, bartender, and carpenter, Brooklyn native Larry Racioppo traveled around the city in the 1970s making photos of New York as it teetered along the edge of bankruptcy. Despite — or perhaps because of — the lack of basic government services, the people found a way to make the best of their circumstances through creativity.

“The 1970s were a tough time for all New York City,” says Racioppo. “Government services were being cut back and unemployment was relatively high — but the working class people I knew and lived among were familiar with hard times. Volunteers from block associations, local churches, and fraternal orders like the Veterans of Foreign Wars created and staffed community events regularly. Most of these activities were focused on helping kids have fun.”

It’s a way of life that only exists in tiny, ungentrified pockets scattered across the five boroughs today. In the new exhibition, Bowery Street, Racioppo explores one of the last remaining vestiges of old New York: an undeveloped three-block section of Coney Island’s amusement area that is still home family-owned booths and concessions offering games of chance and skill.

“Here are games with regulation size basketballs and narrow rims, games with water pistols and darts, rings to toss and bbs for shooting zombies. Because they remind the 1970s street fair games I played years ago, I really enjoy photographing them,” says Racioppo, who received a 2021 New York City Artist Corps grant to document this little corner of Brooklyn that echoes a way of life Racioppo photographed at the very dawn of his career.

Read the Full Story at Blind

*Girl and boy on circular car ride, 13th Street, 1976 © Larry Racioppo*

*Ticket booth and empty ride, Fourth Avenue, 1974 © Larry Racioppo*

Categories: 1970s, Art, Blind, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, Photography

Jamel Shabazz: Prospect Park – My Oasis In Brooklyn

Posted on October 14, 2021

Hailing from Red Hook, Brooklyn, Jamel Shabazz recounts his early memories of visiting Prospect Park in the mid-1960s. Spring was in the air and his youthful Aunt Bev took Shabazz and his two cousins on the F train to the park.

“The atmosphere of the park was quite refreshing after a strenuous school week and a great escape from the concrete and congestion of public housing,” Shabazz says. “What I remember most was the beautiful greenery, numerous horse trails, and the warm spirited people I would meet along the way. It felt like being in another state.”

The son of a Navy photographer, Shabazz first picked up the camera in high school, making portraits of his friends. After graduating, he served in the U.S. Army and was stationed in Germany. Shabazz and his unit spent a lot of time in the Black Forest where he developed a deep appreciation for nature. “I recall thinking to myself that the only other place that mirrors this atmosphere, is Prospect Park,” he says.

Read the Full Story at Huck

Categories: 1980s, 1990s, Art, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, Photography

Russell Frederick: Brooklyn’s Native Son

Posted on October 13, 2021

*Russell Frederick. Harlem, NY 2018 – Money, Power, & Respect! Three ‘Queens’ pose for a photo on 125 Street.*

Over the past two decades, self-taught photographer Russell Frederick has established himself on his own terms, refusing to compromise his integrity for fortune or fame. “I wanted something more than money — I wanted purpose, happiness, and legacy. I wanted to make a difference in the lives of others,” says Brooklyn’s native son.

Coming of age in the 1990s, Frederick worked in healthcare as the crack and AIDS epidemics destroyed countless lives, and the draconian Rockefeller drug laws disappeared a generation of Black men. “I’ve been arrested, stopped and frisked 15, 20 times when I’ve committed no crimes,” Frederick says. “Being targeted by the police impacts our families, our ability to get an education, and our self-esteem.”

Like legendary photographer and film director Gordon Parks, Frederick’s choice of weapons is the camera. After realizing he didn’t want to spend his life working in a job he didn’t love, Frederick gave up a secure career to pursue his love of photography at a time when few Black photographers could make a living in the field. Since 1997, he has devoted himself to crafting stories of Black life that uplift, inspire, and unite. Whether photographing luminaries including President Barack Obama, Mayor David Dinkins, Regina King, Barry Jenkins or the people of his Bed-Stuy community, Frederick is on a mission to create repository of soul, one frame at a time.

As a member of Kamoinge, the world’s longest running non-profit photography collective, Frederick understands the importance of telling Black stories from the perspective of someone inside the community and create counter narratives to mainstream media. “The camera is a powerful tool and I saw why it was weaponized against us,” he says. “I look at my role as a photographer as an educator and visual activist to realize and redefine the way the world sees us because our greatness has been suppressed. When I leave this earth, these images I’ve made will live on and be strong.”

Read the Full Story at The Undefeated

Russell Frederick. New York, NY 1999 – Actors and activists Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis and Reverend Al Sharpton prepare to be arrested in protest to the murder of unarmed Amadou Diallo who was killed by the police when they fired 41 rounds of ammunition.

Categories: Art, Brooklyn, Photography, The Undefeated

Meryl Meisler: Lost & Found: Bushwick

Posted on October 10, 2021

*Meryl Meisler. The School Yard Fence Face to Face Palmetto St., Bushwick, May 1983.*

When American photographer Meryl Meisler arrived in Bushwick, Brooklyn, for a job interview at I.S. 291 Roland Hayes in December 1981 she was shocked at the state of the neighborhood.

“I got out of the subway and everything was boarded up or burned down. It looked like there was a war going on but this was a quiet time,” she recalls. “I thought to myself, ‘It’s a week before Christmas and there’s a job opening? Maybe the other art teacher was killed.’”

Meisler, who had previously been a hostess in Manhattan’s famous go-go bars, arrived at the junior high school on Palmetto Street. The school stood at the edge of an area that had been destroyed by a devastating fire that wiped out 23 buildings that occurred just one week after the infamous 1977 blackout unleashed a wave of arson and looting across the community.

Four years later, Bushwick remained in dire straights with 45% of the population living below the poverty level. “I later found out it had one of the highest vacancy rates in the city — people were leaving,” says Meisler.

Read the Full Story at Huck

*Meryl Meisler. Boyz To Men Palmetto St., Bushwick, October 1982.*

*Meryl Meisler. Knickerbocker Ave., Bushwick, Brooklyn, June 1982*

Categories: 1980s, Art, Books, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, Photography

Joe Conzo: The Elements

Posted on September 8, 2021

*Sal & Mickey Abbatiello, The Fever: 365 Nights of Hip Hop*

“Never in my wildest dreams as a kid from the South Bronx did I think that photography would bring me around the world,” says photographer, author, and activist Joe Conzo.

Coming of age in 1970s New York, Conzo’s worldview was shaped by his grandmother, Dr. Evelina Antonetty, who was fondly known as “The Hell Lady of the Bronx” for the work she did on behalf of the Puerto Rican community; his mother, community Lorraine Montenegro; and his father, Joe Conzo Sr., legendary bandleader Tito Puente’s personal manager and confidante.

Conzo witnessed the city’s infrastructure collapse under the weight of “benign neglect”, which denied basic government services to Black and brown communities across the United States, while landlord-sponsored arson reduced city blocks to rubble. He quickly learned the best way to create change was through collective action.

Read the Full Story a Huck

*Biggie Rolling Dice by Manuel Acevedo, 1994*

*Japanese Print by Manuel Acevedo, 1986*

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Bronx, Brooklyn, Huck, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Irina Rozovsky: In Plain Air

Posted on August 26, 2021

*Irina Rozovsky. Image from In Plain Air (MACK, 2021). Courtesy the artist and MACK.*

Throughout its existence, Prospect Park’s fate has mirrored that of the city, rising and falling with the economic tides, eventually being designated a New York City Historic Landmark in 1975 and listing on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980. Most, knowing little of its extraordinary history, simply partaking in the pleasures of an oasis nestled inside the eye of the storm, a quiet escape from the madness that churns in the streets beyond its walls.

“I came to New York like millions of others, lured by a city pulsing with possibilities, where it’s not who you are or where you’re from but what you work to become,” writes Russia-born, America-raised photographer Irina Rozovsky in her book, In Plain Air (MACK), a collection of lyrical photographs made in Prospect Park between 2011–2020.

Some 17,000 years ago, Brooklyn’s luminous Prospect Park took shape as the Wisconsin Glacier receded, leaving a string of hills, kettles, and plains in its wake. At the very northeastern tip, Mount Prospect took shape, forming one of the tallest hills in Brooklyn, rising some 200 feet about sea level and providing its own private oasis just a few miles inland from the Atlantic Ocean.

During her first scorching summer in the city, where the air is so thick from pollution and humidity, it starts to bend light, Rozovsky escapes to the park where she can breathe easily among the trees and grass.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: Art, Books, Brooklyn, Feature Shoot, Photography

Cey Adams: Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap

Posted on August 20, 2021

*Photograph by Jamel Shabazz. Four young men posing. This image was made on the Lower East Side of Manhattan at the famous Delancey Street & Orchard Street in 1980, a major shopping hub.*

“Like a kid that’s always dreaming about going to the NBA and then you get the call, I was dreaming of this project even before I knew I was going to work on it,” says artist Cey Adams, the founding creative director of Def Jam. Adams art directed the Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap, which is released on Smithsonian Folkways Recordings today (20 August 2021).

Tracing hip hop’s evolution from 1979 to 2013, the anthology brings together nine CDs with 129 tracks and a 300-page illustrated book published to celebrate the fifth anniversary of Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). Featuring photographs by Janette Beckman, Charlie Ahearn, Anthony Barboza, Adrian Boot, Jamel Shabazz, and Glen E. Friedman, it offers a panoramic history of a culture born on the streets of the Bronx, that has since become a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon.

The anthology’s creators eschew the notion of a canon and instead envision the project as a foundation upon which to build. “I was on a call with LL Cool J and Chuck D, and we talked about not only making this book, but our journey as a people,” says Adams, who got his start as a graffiti writer in the 1970s.

Read the Full Story at Huck

*MC Sha-Rock, The Valley, NYC, June 1980, photo by Charlie Ahearn*

*Female Rappers, Class of ’88, 1988, photo by Janette Beckman*

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, Art, Bronx, Brooklyn, Graffiti, Huck, Music, Photography

Hazel Hankin: Never Before Seen Photos of NYC in the 1970s &’80s

Posted on July 19, 2021

*Hazel Hankin. Skate dancers at Park Circle Roller Disco, Brooklyn, NY, 1978.*

*Hazel Hankin. Busy street scene, Lower East Side, 1976.*

Growing up in Midwood, Brooklyn, in the 1960s, Hazel Hankin led a sheltered life until she started going into Manhattan as a teenager. “The wider world of New York City opened up to me. It was gritty and a little scary, but also a place of energy, excitement and possibilities. It was a time of great social and political ferment,” Hazel says, rattling off an impressive list of liberation movements, anti-imperialist activism and radical feminist consciousness-raising groups that transformed her worldview.

As the Black Panther Party and the Young Lords fought for human rights, Hazel was keenly aware that the importance of justice extended to something as basic as housing. “New York was affordable,” she remembers. “You could live on a modest income, and there were jobs to be had if and when you needed one. If you were an artist, an activist, or just a young person trying things out, you could get an apartment, make a little money, and do just that.”

After graduating high school at age 16, Hazel enrolled at university the Pratt Institute in NYC but had to drop out after problems at home caused undue stress. “I rented an apartment with my friend Michele — who tells people now that we ran away from home together at 18,” Hazel says with a laugh, looking back fondly on her years living near the Flatbush entrance to Prospect Park.

Determined to continue her studies, Hazel got an office job working days and enrolled in Brooklyn College, where she studied painting and photography, taking courses at night. At that time, the contemporary art world excluded photography from its ranks, a practice that would continue for the next two decades. Largely unprofessionalised, photography drew artists like Hazel, who gravitated to the fluidity of form and could move seamlessly between portrait, documentary, photojournalism, and street photography over the course of a single afternoon.

Read the Full Story at i-D

*Hazel Hankin. Two boys, Park Slope, Brooklyn, 1977.*

*Hazel Hankin. Neighborhood salsa band performance, Lower East Side, 1976.*

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Brooklyn, i-D, Manhattan, Photography, Women

T. Eric Monroe: Rare & Unseen Moments of 90s Hip Hop

Posted on July 13, 2021

*T. Eric Monroe. Erykah Badu, Power, 1997, NJ.*

Throughout the 1980s, corporate media called Hip Hop a “fad,” trying to dismiss a culture that made its way up from the streets and required no formal musical education — just beats, rhymes, and life. It wasn’t until 1989 that the Grammys introduced a rap category, but after a decade of snubs, artists had had enough. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince, who had won the first-ever Best Rap Performance for “Parents Just Don’t Understand,” boycotted the show along with Salt-N-Pepa, LL Cool J, Slick Rick, and Public Enemy.

By the time the 1990s rolled around, Hip Hop was a distinctly underground phenomenon that made headlines as the subject of FBI attention and Senate hearings organized by Second Lady Tipper Gore. Although it would be years before white audiences transformed Black and Brown street culture into a billion-dollar global industry, Hip Hop was in its Golden Age.

Throughout the ‘90s, skater turned photographer T. Eric Monroe was on the scene, creating a massive archive of Hip Hop icons including Biggie Smalls, Tupac Shakur, Wu-Tang Clan, Nas, Lil’ Kim, the Fugees, and The Roots. Featured in the 90’s HipHop Art Tour on New York’s Lower East Side and the three-volume set Rare & Unseen Moments of 90s Hip Hop, Monroe retraces his journey documenting the scene for record labels and magazines including The Source, XXL, Thrasher, and Transworld Skateboarding.

Read the Full Story at Blind

*T. Eric Monroe. Ol’ Dirty Bastard, Barbershop Chair Stare, 1995, Harlem, NY.*

*T. Eric Monroe. Biggie Smalls, Hoodshock, 1996, Harlem, NY*

Categories: 1990s, Art, Blind, Books, Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Music, Photography

Janette Beckman: New York, New Music 1980-1986

Posted on June 24, 2021

By 1980, New York City was a shell of its former self, reduced to miles of rubble in Black and Latino communities across the Bronx, Brooklyn, Queens and Manhattan. Landlords laid their properties to waste, sometimes hiring arsonists to torch their buildings to collect insurance payouts. With the government support systemically denied under the Nixon White House policy of “benign neglect“, infrastructure crumbled, and crime rose. Yet within this bleak and barren landscape, a new generation came of age embodying the dictum, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”

While white flight drove a mass exodus of the middle class to the hermetic safety of suburbia, rents plummeted, making it possible for anyone to afford to work, live and play in New York. Without the threat of over-policing or the stultification of gentrification, kids ran the streets, the clubs and the bars, creating their own styles of art and music — hip-hop, punk, disco, salsa, jazz, and No Wave — that would set the blueprint for decades to come. It was a golden era, the likes of which are being celebrated in the new exhibition New York, New Music: 1980-1986 at the Museum of the City of New York, which brings together art, fashion, music videos, vinyl records and photography for a kaleidoscopic look at the city’s highly innovative music scene.

“Everything was authentic — it came from the streets and people’s hearts,” says British photographer Janette Beckman, who came to visit New York during Christmas 1982 and never left. “Hip-hop was the boiling point. The economy was bad, and people just decided they were going to do things their way. Kids would steal out of their parents’ house at midnight, go to a train yard to paint, then come home again before going to school. Other kids wrote poetry in their bedrooms, practiced on the streets, and got tapped to rap on stage, getting props from their community. The creativity was coming from the artists, rather than someone telling them what to do.”

Read the Full Story at i-D

*CHARLIE AHEARN, DEBBIE HARRY, FAB 5 FREDDY, GRANDMASTER FLASH, TRACY WORMWORTH, AND CHRIS STEIN, 1981*

Categories: 1980s, Art, Bronx, Brooklyn, Exhibitions, i-D, Manhattan, Music, Photography