THE CORNER — 90s
This was the block I grew up on.
THE CORNER — 90s comes from a photograph of the Harlem block that was home to me during an important part of my life.
This particular corner carries a complicated memory.
Growing up, I watched it become a source of what I can only describe as “employment” for a lot of kids and young adults in the neighborhood. Some of that employment was legitimate. Some of it wasn’t.
But the truth of the matter is that young boys were finding ways to make money that allowed them to feed and clothe themselves.
That made this corner important.
I don’t look back at everything that happened there as something to glorify, but I also don’t believe in removing the uncomfortable parts of the story to make the memory easier to present today.
It was what it was. And it was real.
For some, the corner represented opportunity when conventional opportunities didn’t always feel available. It was a place to make money, meet people and participate in the economy that existed immediately around us.
And for me, it was simply the block.
That’s what gives THE CORNER — 90s its meaning. I’m not looking at Harlem from the outside or reconstructing a place I only know through history.
I’m looking at home.
The storefronts. The corner. The people who moved through it. The legitimate businesses and the activity happening around them. The good, the complicated and everything in between occupied the same few feet of Harlem sidewalk.
THE CORNER — 90s preserves that memory without trying to clean it up or turn it into something it wasn’t.
It was our block. And this was part of its story.
JECK ONE — Graffiti Contemporary.
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