Tompkins Square Park, September 1994From 1994 to 1995 I lived in a converted storefront on the Lower East Side, at 112 Suffolk Street between Delancey and Rivington Streets. Back then the neighborhood was not yet gentrified and was somewhat rough around the edges. I was a new father and even though I was pushing my baby daughter around in a stroller it took the drug dealers a couple of weeks before they realized I lived there and wasn’t there to buy heroin. I worked part-time waiting tables and working as a photographer’s assistant whenever I could; I was rarely without a camera.
I always found the temperance fountain in Tompkins Square Park to be quite out of place — not many of the park’s residents practiced temperance.
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