Bluejake

Surprisingly, I have no memory of visiting Williamsburg before 1999 or 2000. To the outside world, Brooklyn is a smooth solid piece of geography, but to those of us who grew up there, it is as Balkanized as Eastern Europe. North Brooklyn, which roughly encompasses Greenpoint, Williamsburg, and nearby neighborhoods, has almost nothing to do with South Brooklyn, which contains the Brownstone neighborhoods like Park Slope. And forget about East Brooklyn or South Brooklyn- neighborhoods like East New York, Flatlands, or Bay Ridge might as well have been on the moon for all I knew when I was young. [For more on yesterday's discussion of photographer as indexer, consult the work of the Bechers, especially their wonderful book Typologies. Or check out this shot of Watertowers- excellent.]

brooklyn