NYPL’s Eminent Domain Exhibit
Ever notice that some streets are just more interesting to walk on than others? Some have large oaks and cobblestones lining narrow pedestrian walkways lined with historic rows of interesting specialty shops. Others are barren wastelands without a tree in sight, concrete walls, endless pavement and not much else. Between 1949 and 1973, federal urban renewal projects across the country bulldozed 2,500 neighborhoods in 993 American cities displacing over 1 million people. Things were no different in NYC but now real estate prices creep ever higher in neighborhoods that were spared from the wrecking ball. Witness Brooklyn Heights, Park Slope, Greenwich Village, and it's no wonder that suburbia isn't for everybody.
Eminent Domain: Contemporary Photography and the City, currently on exhibit at The New York Public Library, features the work of five contemporary photographers focusing on the effects of urban renewal on NYC's neighborhoods and public use of urban space against the backdrop of current projects like Atlantic Yards, a hotly contested developer driven initiative underway in Brooklyn.
Highlights include Bettina Johae's Borough Edges, NYC, a digital project remapping waterfront accessibility in all 5 boroughs revealing New York City defined outside of its famous landmarks. The map includes brown fields, ship cemeteries, and hazardous waste dumps. In the exhibit entitled Window, Reiner Leist used a 19th-century camera to capture the view transforming outside his 26th-floor apartment on 8th Ave. several times each day for the past decade. The resulting photography used in a documentary serves as both an elegy and homage to downtown Manhattan's transformation.