What I refer to as the 3rd Ave. Corridor roughly runs from 16th Street to 65th Street, and from 4th Ave. to 1st Ave. in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. It is a neighborhood that I first encountered upon moving to New York over ten years ago – I currently live nearby.
The Corridor consists of numerous fascinating aspects that have sparked my interest: the architecture, the residents, the businesses, the transportation infrastructure, the frantic traffic on both the street level and at an elevated level. There is a cacophony of movement, visuals and sounds that is overwhelming at times, and yet residents do their shopping, walk their dogs, socialize at bars and restaurants.
The gentrification story: Due to the rising cost of real estate, especially in Manhattan and northwest Brooklyn, this area has become increasingly attractive for a middle class that can no longer afford to live closer to the city’s center (the next class up has moved in). Here and there, once modest clapboard clad wood-frame row houses are being renovated into modern design statements, and quite attractive they are.
To date the project has captured the landscape and infrastructure of the corridor. The next phase will place greater emphasis on the structural details, the residents and business owners, as well as the movements and sounds circulating through echoing off of the buildings, using video to record these elements.
One of my goals is to collaborate with researchers working in fields related to urbanism, anthropology, sociology and public health in oder to convey the complex systemic changes happening here, and by extension all neighborhoods that are faced with economic and demographic change. A dedicated web site will be created that enables navigation through these interconnected relationships.
