Brooklyn, Ravings of a Middle Aged Man

Words and Photos by Hugh Stewart

Manhattan has changed over the past 10 years. It is not the same place I first arrived at in 1983 and still continue to come and go from. When I first lived there Manhattan was a diverse, vibrant exciting place. Drag queens and drug addicts mixed with artists, musicians, writers and the very very occasional banker. The meatpacking district was a refuge for the homeless and at night a pickup place for bridge and tunnelers (people from New Jersey and Long Island) to fulfill fantasies and proposition drag queens huddled around fires in 44-gallon drums. Now it’s all designer nightclubs, designer restaurants and designer Stella McCartney. The butchers are all but gone and the residents would complain bitterly should anyone light a cigarette in the street let alone start a fire in a drum.

Artists and musicians were the majority in the East village. There is now a building on Astor Place with apartments starting at 4 million dollars. They even had a statue in front removed because skateboarders were using it and made too much noise.

SOHO still had some diversity. Young people opened shops and galleries and the chances of getting mugged were high. 42nd street wasn’t yet a mini Disneyland. Pornography-showing movie houses lined the streets and Travis Bickle waited for the rain to wash the scum from the streets. Now bankers and hedge funders are the norm and they mix with the occasional cashed-up artist, musician or writer. Sure you can argue Mayor Giuliani (now a republican presidential candidate) cleaned up (sanitized) the city. As he perfectly timed his walk out of the World Trade Center on 9 / 11 he reinvented himself. Until that point he was probably the most vilified major the city ever had. He and his cohorts ripped the soul out of Manhattan. They have a lot to answer for.

Now you won’t get mugged and you won’t be confronted by beggars so much. But do you really want to live in a homogenised, Disneyfied world? What’s wrong with keeping your hand in your pocket lest someone with less take a fancy to your Rolex?

So what happened to all these people or those of their ilk? Well fortunately they seem to be alive and well and living in Brooklyn. Right across the bridges from the city of Manhattan is another city. A city as diverse as Manhattan ever was. As interesting and vibrant, as colourful and as loud as Manhattan in its heyday. Only bigger and arguably better. Multi-racial and multi-cultural, just not so multi-national. Well, not yet. So next time you are heading to NY stray across the bridges and spend your time in Brooklyn. From Red Hook to Cobble Hill from Prospect heights to Williamsburg. See and experience for yourself how a proper diverse city works. How real people co exist. How cash and condos aren’t the only social barometer.

See for yourself what Goldman Sacs and Starbucks haven’t completely infected. See the handwritten sign that reads Worst President Ever on the side of a building in Williamsberg and be happy it hasn’t been painted over.

If we ever leave Bondi and move back to NY we would live in Brooklyn. Let the hedge funders and Wall Street wankers have Manhattan. Let them convince each other how they are living so close to the edge. CBGBs is gone and someone has bought the Chelsea Hotel to renovate. It’s not the same and our own greed and pressure to impress each other killed it.

These are some images from Brooklyn. I took them while I was working on a commission to photograph the area. They are just a collection of images. Nothing more and nothing in particular. Some interesting people and some vignettes that caught my eye. Shot over a few days last summer.

Each night I returned to my designer hotel on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and dined at Schillers, my local designer restaurant. I didn’t get mugged although my spirits were raised somewhat reading that someone had been shot just down the street. I paid 4 dollars for a terrible cappuccino and 400 dollars a night for my room. I got a special deal because I know the PR person. But at least I was there when it was what it was. It made me sad and I felt a bit disappointed in myself.