Jay Street Brooklyn

In the winter of 2012, I lived in my studio.
Cold. Snowbound. Weeks of blizzards erased edges and slowed time.
I photographed close—just a few blocks around Jay Street—returning repeatedly to the Manhattan Bridge and moving across rooftops. DUMBO was different then. Rougher. Quieter. Still holding on.
Water tanks marked the skyline.
Silent. Weathered. Unimpressed.
They stood as witnesses while the neighborhood shifted and familiar faces disappeared. Their wooden slats absorbed decades of rain, sun, and street-level noise—holding what glass towers could not: memory, endurance.
As snow settled over DUMBO, something else receded. The raw edges. The imperfect beauty. The lives embedded in brick and stone. The area softened—not only under winter, but under the pressure of transformation.
Today, DUMBO reads differently, its former identity buried like streets beneath snow.