Upper West Side Story

The Upper West Side was the first neighborhood I lived in when I ran away to New York City at eighteen with all of the clothes I owned on my back. I spent my first years in the city living in a closet-sized SRO in the West 70s. Filled with the particular energy that comes from youth, uncertainty, and the conviction that life as an artist was possible, it remains one of the most formative periods of my life.

Although my connection to the neighborhood began in the late 1990s, I continued to live on the Upper West Side on and off for decades, returning to it again and again as the city and I changed together.

Upper West Side Story is my ode to a neighborhood I love. Despite its constantly changing landscape and disappearing storefronts, its character endures. These photographs are an attempt to preserve some of that spirit: the charm, beauty, and sense of timelessness that continue to draw me back.