The Story:

I have been following the rise of these structures which are popping up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan for about a year and a half now. One day, in the summer of 2003, as I was waiting for a friend to emerge from the Delancey stop of the F train. I was leaning against the wall of the pizza shop on the corner. It was in this moment of forced stillness that i surveyed the horizon, only to spy to my disbelief a whole house growing out of a tenement building. It was like tornado had swallowed it whole, and deposited it on a rooftop on Orchard Street. I dragged my friend over to view it when she finally showed up, just to make sure I wasn't seeing things. No, it truly was exactly what I thought it was, a house on top of a tenement.

From that point on as I walked to work or other events in the East Village and Lower East Side I started looking up. And what i saw astounded me. Right above my everyday life a whole community of these structures wasw sprouting, some modestly peeking over these tenements cornices, others insolently jutting straight up into air-rights space.

As the collection grew in my mind I knew I had to start gathering these moments. Digital camera in hand I strode out into the freezing cold weather and ventured forth, snapping away. Once the buds of spring sprang forth it became much harder to get clear shots of most structures, so I took the photos I had taken and organized them into a quick web site. Upon the arrival of winter 2004 I grabbed my camera and went back out into the cold. Much to my surprise (which was a mix of horror and joy), some even more ridiculous structures were popping up, a few obscuring pictures i had taken just last year of other structures. I have heard there are more large scale structures in the works.

This time around I began shooting in film, too, trying to find the right medium to realize this project into a physical form. I've been making 20" x 24" c-prints at the moment, but am still unsure whether this is gallery material or something more underground. please let me know if you have any thoughts.

Here is my artist statement for this project:

"I have lived in the LES for 14 years and have been an avid spectator in its evolution. When I first moved here I felt voyeuristic during any attempts to photograph the neighborhood, my presence as a college student and “outsider” being evidence that the area was changing. After 14 years i can truly call it mine, and feel excited to be able to illuminate some of the aspects happening which i can now knowledgeably call strange. Like a futurist’s dream, almost overnight, a new city is growing on the tops of tenement building on the lower east side. Penthouses abound placed on skyscrapers in loftier parts of town, almost unintelligible to the naked eye. The structures I have photographed are clearly perched precariously on top of leaning, sinking, time-worn architecture. Looking up while walking the street is never much of a priority, and to the untrained eye there may not be much to see. For me, when that enlightened moment happened, i became fascinated by what i saw, i began seeking out structures in the freezing cold. i was shocked to find so many emanating from buildings centuries old. Many of them remain conundrums in my mind, knowing the history of the neighborhood. they seem almost impossible, but they exist as some sort of ridiculous manifestation of evolution. "