Photographer Kristy Chatelain moved to Brooklyn in 2006 and immediately fell in love with the all the family-owned Polish shops that lined its streets, the history that seemed to flow from every crack in the street, every piece of street art she passed, and how the area seemed to scream “photograph me!”
Check out this awesome photo series that illustrates the impact that gentrification has had on the Brooklyn streetscape.
But now she’s obsessed with how dramatically Brooklyn has metamorphasised into something completely different, something she has explored in her new photo series Brooklyn Changing.
“I’m drawn to the idea that other people have been there and have left something visually interesting behind,” she says in an interview with Wired. “Back in the day, those streets would have been busy with all kinds of maritime and industrial activity, and now so many of the buildings sit empty and the streets are broken up with glass bottles and trash.”
However, it’s not the empty streets her series focuses on, it’s the melange of new restaurants, bars and cafes that have taken over Brookyln, and which have seen rental prices skyrocket (something than people living in Sydney or Melbourne would be all too familar with) and has forced many longtime residents to move (including Chatelain herself).
But overall, she isn’t bitter. “I see it as all part of the cycle of change that is New York City,” she says. “It’s just sad that long time residents might be forced out in the process of gentrification, or basically have to watch their neighbourhood become unrecognisable.”
[via Wired]
