East Williamsburg, or Bushwick, or Ridgewood, or rather the intersection of the three, is all the rage now. Groups of French-speaking tourists follow their guides through the sunny streets colonized by bars, cafes and restaurants, to gaze at the open-air murals that now grace the formerly dilapidated walls of old shops and warehouses. The artists had arrived a few years back to fill the space vacated by waning manufacture and distribution enterprises. A few industrial buildings were converted to lofts. Now the trend is in full swing. Businesses and yoga studios are popping out everywhere and residential buildings are bought and renovated in anticipation of rising prices, prices that will eventually push even the artists out of their studio spaces and further east, leaving behind a fully gentrified neighborhood.

I was there before it started, and watched it all develop. Arrived as part of the first group to take advantage the affordability and accessibility of the neighborhood – namely recent immigrants – and will probably leave as part of another, as part of the “creatives.” As the neighborhood changed I changed with it. These photographs were taken while attending Art School, when Williamsburg had just started, around 2005. There was nothing here, industry was leaving and the artists hadn’t made their way this far yet. I was not seeking to document the change, though inadvertently I did. I was seeking inspiration. The haphazard juxtaposition of old and new coupled with the chaos thrown in by the process of decay that had begun to engulf the place, the unplanned development of its components, the utilitarianism of industrial elements, they all gave the neighborhood a form-follows-function sort of beauty built on natural principles of growth and decay. I was fascinated by the three chief materials that used to dominate the place: brick, glass (mostly broken but still gloriously refracting) and corrugated steel. The bright colors of polished rigs against weathered walls. Repetition. Irony. The distant iconic view that represents New York.