Tenth Anniversary

March 2017 -

This month marks the tenth anniversary of an ongoing series of photo essays which started at this website in March 2007. Published every two weeks for the past decade, these essays capture a period of remarkable change along New York City's waterfront, as many of the industrial relics of the past century were removed to make way for new residences and parks at the water's edge, even as sea level rise, climate change, storms, and economic forces radically reshaped the city.

These photo essays started as a personal project to document the rapid transformation of Brooklyn's coastline, and have since expanded to capture change in all five boroughs, and in other coastal cities. Initially intended to show unseen aspects of the contemporary landscape, they have since taken on a historic value, with hundreds of thousands of photos cataloging lost landmarks and disappearing neighborhoods. These essays have been exhibited in museums and libraries, have been published in all of New York City's major periodicals, and several of these photos are in the permanent archives of the Museum of the City of New York, the Brooklyn Historical Society, and the Brooklyn Library.

These essays are currently published as the Camera Obscura column at Curbed NY.  The first five years of essays are archived at this website, while the most recent five years can be seen at Curbed. A complete list of all 212 photo essays has been amassed here. As the evolution of the city continues, this archive of photo essays will continue to grow.

Industrial Twilight: Photographs of the Changing Brooklyn Waterfront

From August 26, 2016 to Fall 2017, the exhibit "Industrial Twilight: Photographs of the Changing Brooklyn Waterfront" will be exhibited in the Atlantic Avenue Subway Station. This solo exhibit of Nathan Kensinger's photographs presents a retrospective of his work from the past decade, documenting the post-industrial coast of Brooklyn. "Industrial Twilight" was curated by the MTA Arts & Design program, and presents eight photographic transparencies, each printed six feet wide and installed in a backlit Lightbox.

"The images in Industrial Twilight show us the eerie stillness of places where industry thrived, from Sunset Park to Williamsburg and the Brooklyn Navy Yard," writes the MTA. "Kensinger finds poetry in these places and leaves a lasting reminder that while change is constant, history surrounds us with a reminder that before Brooklyn became a “brand”, it was an economic engine that employed thousands of people. Kensinger's images reveal a lone canoeist gliding down the Gowanus Canal past a concrete plant still going strong with the F train in the background, and images of the pre-transformation waterfront at Bush Terminal and the Domino Sugar Refinery. The architecture and lighting in the images of the Brooklyn Army Terminal and Greenpoint Terminal Market provides a haunting but reverent look at the borough in this moment of time, while an overgrown home at Admiral’s Row reflects that growth is never ending, and the waterfront still captures the imagination of the borough."

This exhibit was sponsored by Griffin Editions and Kodak Alaris. For more information on Industrial Twilight, visit the MTA Arts & Design exhibit page.