{"id":20402,"date":"2025-10-28T21:33:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-28T21:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20402\/"},"modified":"2025-10-28T21:33:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-28T21:33:08","slug":"a-love-letter-to-manhattans-lower-east-side","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/20402\/","title":{"rendered":"A Love Letter to Manhattan\u2019s Lower East Side"},"content":{"rendered":"

The photographer Destiny Mata\u2019s love for the Lower East Side is familial and tender; the neighborhood is both her home and her muse. In fact: \u201cIt\u2019s more than my home,\u201d she told Hyperallergic. \u201cIt\u2019s a part of me.\u201d Born in San Antonio, Texas, Mata grew up in New York City, where she and her mother spent time in the shelter system before moving to the Lillian Wald Houses, a New York City Housing Authority<\/a> (NYCHA) project on Avenue D. Mata \u2014 whose mother is an artist, and father and late aunt\u00a0both photographers \u2014 lives there today, the apartment\u2019s walls painted a variety of warm colors. Her ongoing Lower East Side Yearbook project, presented at Abrons Arts Center as Lower East Side Yearbook: A Living Archive<\/a>, is certainly a record, but it\u2019s also a love song.<\/p>\n

The LES Yearbook Project began in 2023, inspired by a yearbook class Mata taught at City-As-School High School, her alma mater, and then a black and white photography course she offered to neighbors and her students at the Lower Eastside Girls Club. \u201cI took over a mobile airstream darkroom, an open-door space where neighbors would stop by, share stories about the neighborhood, and reflect on how much it changed,\u201d she said. \u201cThat experience inspired the foundation of the project.\u201d In the airstream, she connected with Rosa Lee Rodriguez, Nadia Ramnarine, and Maylyn \u201cZero\u201d Iglesias, neighbors, friends, and artists with whom she\u2019d discuss the area\u2019s hypergentrification and the risk of NYCHA\u2019s impending privatization. To defend and memorialize their rapidly changing home, they opted to make a collaborative yearbook, one that would, Mata explained, \u201chonor the legacy and spirit of public housing residents here on the Lower East Side. It\u2019d be a testament to us just being here \u2014 being heard and remembered.\u201d They distributed flyers (\u201cCalling All NYCHA Residents: Share Your Story, Share Your Roots!\u201d) around the neighborhood, and Mata hosted workshops, inviting LES residents to share their personal histories, family photographs, and memories.<\/p>\n

\"\"Cheryl Kirwan, Untitled (2001), archival pigment print (photo courtesy the artist)<\/p>\n

Making the yearbook put Mata in closer contact with her neighbors. The completed first edition, made with the support of a collaborative yearbook committee<\/a>, combines their collages, archival photos, and love notes to the place with Mata\u2019s portraits, lovingly tracking the LES\u2019s history (as well as introducing each contributor). A Living Archive brings its pages to life, with images and thematic excerpts placed in a gallery context. The monumentality of NYCHA\u2019s buildings is alluded to immediately at the exhibition\u2019s entrance, with a wall-sized vinyl of Mata\u2019s \u201cBrick by Brick\u201d (2023), a black and white photograph of the Jacob Riis, Lillian Wald, and Baruch Houses, shot from above. It\u2019s overlaid with a small image of yearbook contributor Cheryl Kirwan, shared from her own archives \u2014 a reflection of the project\u2019s collaborative approach. It\u2019s 1981, and she\u2019s dressed impeccably in canary yellow, beaming.<\/p>\n

The display upstairs features contributions by yearbook participants and a few architectural motifs that recur throughout the project, including hallways, benches, and doors. There\u2019s a row of photographs of busy city benches over the decades, drawn from the photographers\u2019 archives. An actual city bench, tagged by artists Al Diaz and Charlie Doves, sits across from filmmaker Aicha Cherif\u2019s short documentary, \u201cHEAT\u201d (2025), a portrait of three LES women facing the privatization of their homes. There are images by Kirwan, Maria Amaro, Zakaria Fofana, and other contributors of friends, families, and building residents posing in stairwells and entryways, illustrating the way apartment life, especially in NYCHA housing, encourages private spaces to expand into public areas. The living room, and the family who occupies it, extends beyond the door \u2014 speaking of which, a burgundy one, with a peephole you can look through to see more images, is also on view as part of Mata\u2019s The Doors of NYCHA (2020) series. During the early days of the pandemic, Mata delivered groceries with the Baruch Houses Tenants Association Pantry; she\u2019d spend idle time waiting for her neighbors to open their doors, which were decorated with holiday decorations, notes (\u201cPRESS HERE\u201d), or doodles. \u201cI found myself learning about [my neighbors] through the unique ways they\u2019d decorated, before I even met them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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\t\tCheryl Kirwan, \u201cHipolina (Polo) Gomez\u201d (1982), archival pigment print (photo courtesy the artist)<\/p>\n

Mata\u2019s experience with the Tenants Association prompted her to learn more about the privatization of NYCHA under the Permanent Affordability Commitment Together (PACT) and Rental Assistance Demonstration (RAD) initiatives. According to Save Section 9, a tenant-led coalition, RAD conversion and private management have increased the cost of utility bills, limited access to repairs, and removed succession rights. Developments under private management experienced six times as many eviction attempts, with overall eviction rates three times higher than the average. The yearbook features images from protests led by NYCHA residents, their signs and masks emblazoned with calls to action and warnings: \u201cGive NYCHA the money,\u201d \u201cPublic Housing is on Life Support.\u201d The show itself, said Mata, is not merely about love, but also advocacy.<\/p>\n

The former might be the best catalyst for the latter. Along Abrons\u2019s walls are vinyl phrases, part of a piece entitled Love Letter to the LES (2023\u201325), by various contributors; they\u2019re drawn from both the yearbook and its attendant workshops. These are the words of the people who care for and shape the LES, and who, if able to stay there, will continue to nurture it best. \u201cWe come together as a community,\u201d the notes read. \u201cThank you, L.E.S., for making me a champion and not a loser.\u201d \u201cWhen I think of family, it\u2019s you I think of.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\t\tDestiny Mata, \u201cHalloween: The Doors of NYCHA\u201d (2020), archival pigment print (photo courtesy Abrons Art Center)
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\t\tDestiny Mata, \u201cBrick by Brick\u201d (2023), adhesive vinyl<\/p>\n

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