Calzone
Gear Whore #1
It is a big city now of 8.4 million. Never use to be more than 8 million for decades. Stuff happens. Watch the news.
The old New York is disappearing. New York is not so rough anymore, but still stuff happens.
Anyways if you connect the dots it becomes evident that with all the infrastructure building and construction that NYC will be a city of 10 million within a decade. Hudson Yards when completed will add about 200K-300K more people, and Queens South will also add another 200K-300K. These two projects will be finished within 5 years so they alone gets us close to 9 million.
There is a great disparity of wealth, the rich live right next to the poor, and there is great poverty that is concentrated. There are mentally ill people walking the streets, there are homelessness, and there are some angry people.
There is no other better time to be a photographer in NYC because the changing is happening so rapidly. To really be safe one has to know the history of the areas. For example I have a friend who was mugged in Fort Green by gunpoint literally on his stoop one night. This happened around 15 years ago when Fort Green was beginning to gentrify, even though it wasn't really a bad area.
The area around downtown Brooklyn is newly developed. Pratt University is embedded in that nearby area, yet it seems students become targets of crime.
My gal is an academic and teaches at Fordham's Grad School in Lincoln Center, but Fordham also has a campus in the Bronx. Every academic year it seems students routinely get robbed mugged, assaulted and raped routinely in the Bronx because: one they are not aware of their surroundings; they are preocuppied texting and surfing the Internet; and they are unaware of the privilage and entitlement they are displaying that comes off as arrogance.
The reason I talk about the harsh reality of urban living is if you believe you are in a safe place you will not be ready if something bad happens. NYC is about chaos and random events. That is what makes urban living edgy and exciting, but if you had to would you be able to flip the switch to process an appropriate response?
One summer day I was walking with John on East 116th Street in Spanish Harlem. We were kinda out of place, stood out as not being locals, and we were both carrying cameras. Understand that John is a rather big white guy with a shaved head, and I'm a tall (for an Asian) skinny guy with a muscular build.
Then we heard someone yell out, "You two-come here." The guy who yelled to us was a local that wore a leather vest that accentuated a powerful build of perhaps a UFC fighter. Next to him stood a sidekick.
The wrong thing to do would of been ignore the guy calling out to us, so John and I walked over.
"What are you doing here?" we were being directly asked in an aggressive maner. It wasn't "How you doing. What are you doing here?" if you know what I mean. It was tense and it looked like anything could happen. The other choice of ignoring him would have been an insult that would almost automatically esculate the already present aggression.
Now realize that I am a gentrifier and I kinda just moved into SpaHa just 15 blocks from where we were standing. I knew that half the people in the community received some form of government check, that one quarter of the population lives in Public Housing, and that Spanish Harlem is all about concentrated poverty that is somewhat institutionalized.
To help diffuse the situation I lifted the Leica held in my right hand and said, "Were photographing. I live in the neighborhood a few blocks downtown (really 15 blocks) by the 103rd and Lex subway."
But that was not what he wanted to hear. "What are you doing here," he said again, and then he turned to John and asked, "Are you a cop?"
"No," John said, but yet again that is not what he wanted to hear.
"Are you a cop?" he asked John again.
"Just because I'm a white guy with a shaved head, it doesn't mean that I'm a cop," John said, and everyone laughed.
We would later learn that this fighter was the local vigilante of East 116th Street, and also a bounty hunter. What became muddled is that he kinda bragged about being in jail, sentenced to 17 years for manslaughter, but that seemed untrue because he was too young, unless he maybe killed someone when he was perhaps at the age of 15.
We heard one story about how he broke up a robbery of a local licquer store without a weapon. He threw the guy though a plate glass window.
Then there was the tale of how he bounty hunted. He described his technic of stalking his prey by waiting for them to be engaged in talking to someone, and then he would attack cold cocking and laying out a man with a single blow while explaining, "You are the FXXX who has been screwing my wife." He claimed to have taken down 27 men that way.
He mentioned that the cops don't like him, and it is because he makes them look bad. LOL.
Anyways do you know how you would respond? Would you be cool enough to get yourself out of a sit-che-A-tion? Would you be able to flip the switch and become fierce? Would you be able to think past any fear?
I just say this because in New York anything can happen.
Cal
