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Until 2005, Williamsburg was a modest neighborhood in Brooklyn
that was home to working- and middle-class Italians, Hispanics and
Poles class, to many small industries, and increasingly to artists
who were fleeing Manhattan real estate prices. It was also my home;
in 1989, we moved into and renovated an abandoned loft, which we
rented and shared with a changing assortment of three roommates.
By the late 90’s we noted the increasing changes—the
sushi restaurants, the organic shops, the boutiques. Gentrification
had taken hold, but it wasn’t until the City Council passed
a rezoning ordinance in May 2005 that all hell broke loose.
Developers were given twenty and even twenty-five year tax abatements
for building; everything that was available was purchased, and almost
everything that wasn’t yet available was gradually made so
through evictions or skyrocketing rents.
In late 2005, I began to systematically record all the demolitions
and constructions. Over the next three years, in an area bounded
by the East River and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway—an area
6 blocks wide by 17 blocks long—I recorded 173 sites. And
in late 2008, I also began to record what was happening in our own
home, since it was becoming clear that we would also have to leave,
as had so many other artists already.
In making Gut Renovation I was primarily concerned
with documenting the two central aspects of my experience as the
neighborhood collapsed around me. These were the physical changes—the
heart-rending loss of so many beautiful old industrial buildings,
as well as the men and women who worked in them—and the change
in our lives—the equally painful loss of our living and working
space and the friendships we forged with our roommates and neighbors.
--Sue Friedrich |
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