New York Stories 2

New York Stories August 22

We visited New Yorks @bronxdocumenatry centre to research how they work with local communities, young people, under-represented documentarians and visiting visual artists.

They work from two buildings in The Bronx, an area that is undergoing the same transitions as Hackney and other parts of innercity London. Through photography and story-telling they encourage communities to document their lives and neighbourhoods and links to their cultural backgrounds and birth places. Set up by Mike Kember the place is run by a small of dedicated and talented staff who lead one of the only centres of it’s kind in the world. As part of our educational remit we are planning to run an online project with them in 2023/24. As we continue our remit to document local neighbourhoods with the locals who have made their areas unique and rich with diasporic history and culture. The Bronx Documentary Center uses community-based documentary practice and education to explore vital issues, stimulate critical thought, and drive social change.

As part of our street stories in New York we attended a How Club event in an area called Tomkins Square Park, Alphabet City in NY. We photographed a house music collective in the Park in August 22.

“This is the story of St. Marks, otherwise known as the HOW Club. Most of the people in the park are "us". People who had spent varying amounts of time in the HOW Club. The East Village once attracted members of New York’s underbelly and St. Mark’s was at the heart of it. Average people were using different drugs. The drugs got heavier and whole swaths of NYC were inundated with heroin and a new plague that they were led to believe was "non-addictive" cocaine. The building was used as an Drugs/Alcoholics Anonymous dry disco for a period and later became a mecca for all 12 Step Fellowship members and meetings. We are like a very large extended family. I would set up the meeting room on Friday and Saturday nights. People would run in, and put their keys in the chairs, and then run upstairs to dance their arses off. It was their "Night Out" with their spouses or dates, etc. At 5 minutes to Midnight they would all RUN downstairs, evacuating the dance floor, pick up their keys, and put their arses in the chairs to make a meeting. Afterward running back upstairs to dance again. Every time I'm in in the East Village, I stop on St. Mark's and bow my head. There's one thing you can’t see from the outside. And that is the lives and the souls of the people who were saved in this building. It became a place of pain, rebirth, joy and exultation as well as almost round-the-clock support. We called it "The Emergency Room. So we meet up sometimes and play out, like today in the park and we remember how lucky we are." Buddy

The rest of the photographs are from the Lower East Side, Brooklyn and The Bronx. Visit and research funded by The Weavers Association.