The Fifth Anniversary of Hurricane Sandy

October 2017 - 

When Hurricane Sandy made landfall in New York City five years ago, it caused massive devastation in many of the unique coastal communities that had been documented on this website. In the five years since the storm, many of these communities have undergone a radical transformation. Some have been almost entirely rebuilt, after being crushed and burned to the ground during the storm surge. Others have been demolished as part of a managed retreat from the waterfront. The entire coast of the city has undergone enormous changes, and will change even more dramatically in the years to come, as larger storm barriers are built and as sea levels continue to rise.  

The following is a chronological list of my photo essays from the past five years about the changes that have occurred along New York City's waterfront since Hurricane Sandy. They were all published by the website Curbed NY as part of my ongoing column Camera Obscura, which was begun in 2012, just a few months before the storm. 


2012
- Surveying Sandy's Damage in Red Hook, Dumbo, and Gowanus (October 2012)
- A Look at the Post-Sandy Cleanup in the Rockaways (November 2012)
- Surveying Sandy's Damage to Staten Island One Week Later (November 2012)
- Surveying Queens' Rockaway Peninsula After the Storm (Novermber 2012)

2013
- Wondering What Hurricane Sandy Means for Red Hook's Future (January 2013)
- How the Newtown Creek Area is Faring After the Storm (February 2013)
- How Dumbo's Arts Spaces Have Recovered From the Storm (February 2013)
- Coney Island's Boardwalks and Beaches Prep for Memorial Day (May 2013)
- Demolition and Recovery in the Post-Sandy Rockaways (May 2013)
- Tracing The Scars of Hurricane Sandy on Staten Island (April 2013)
- Coney Island's Residents, Forgotten, Struggle to Recover (October 2013)
- Abandoned Buildings, Red Tape Mark a Year on Staten Island (October 2013)
- Tracing A Post-Storm Year of Change in the Rockaways (October 2013)

2014
- Fort Tilden Beach Reopens to a Changing Neighborhood (July 2014)
- Breezy Point Residents Choose to Remain and Rebuild (October 2014)
- Two Years On, Coney Island Enclave Still Awaits Recovery (October 2014)
- Residents Retreat From Staten Island's Hard-Hit Waterfront (October 2014)

2015
- Tracing Post-Storm Recovery in New York and New Orleans (January 2015)
- What Comes Next for the Changing Coney Island Boardwalk? (July 2015)
- Is This The End of the Brooklyn Bungalow? (August 2015)
- Rockaway Boardwalk Re-emerges With a New Identity (August 2015)
- The Slow Resurgence of the Rockaway Bungalow (September 2015)
- Three Years After Sandy, Returning Staten Island to Nature (October 2015)

2016
- Forecasting the Future on NYC's Climate Change Frontlines (March 2016)
- Can Auction Transform a Storm-Damaged Corner of Staten Island? (April 2016)
- A small Queens community confronts climate change along Hawtree Creek (September 2016)
- Four years after Sandy, Staten Island's shoreline is transformed (October 2016)
- On Staten Island, a centuries-old waterway helps shape new wetlands (December 2016)

2017
- Climate change in Trump’s NYC: How at-risk neighborhoods are combating rising sea levels (January 2017)
- A long-neglected Queens neighborhood grapples with the effects of climate change in NYC (April 2017)
- Imagining a New York City ravaged by climate change (May 2017)
- In Queens and Staten Island, two competing visions for New York's waterfront (June 2017)
- In Queens, chronic flooding and sea-level rise go hand in hand (October 2017)
- Hurricane Sandy five years later: Brooklyn’s Sea Gate is stuck in a middle ground (October 2017)
- Hurricane Sandy five years later: Rebuilding in Breezy Point (October 2017)
- Hurricane Sandy five years later: A Staten Island neighborhood transformed by ‘managed retreat’ (October 2017)
- Five years after Hurricane Sandy, NYC's coastal communities remain vulnerable (October 2017)