Brooklyn

Finding aid for
Brooklyn
Date range: 1984-2001

Finding Aid created by Michelle Lopez, 2018
Copyright Michelle Lopez

Extent: Website

Storage location: limeblue2.wixsite.com/ashes

Language(s): The material is in English

Abstract: “Brooklyn” includes photographs, audio, transcripts, videos, and movie clips.

 

History: Brooklyn during the 1980’s and 1990’s was a home to many low-income people of color, including my family. I always heard stories in passing about the fires my mother survived and the places she lived. I wanted to use this project to connect all of these threads together into a visual representation of her life during that time period. Additionally, over the course of this semester I’ve been taking a class focused on Latinos in New York City, in which I’ve focused on the identity of certain boroughs. The Bronx is known for its urban blight during the 70’s, yet Brooklyn didn’t look much different either. Brooklyn is in this very interesting place where it’s being gentrified and so its identity is going through this transformation of identity where the images of “ghetto-ness” are alongside newly renovated brownstones and community gardens. With this in mind, I wanted to explore what it meant to live during this time and how my mother saw her neighborhood.

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Scope and Content: The objects included in the Brooklyn archive include audio, transcriptions, photographs, videos, and movie clips. The strength of the collection is found with the audio interviews and home photographs. These series give an intimate look into what Brooklyn looked like during the 1980’s and 1990’s.

Everything is arranged together rather than being divided into years or medium in order to create a general feeling of what life was like during this time period rather than breaking it up groups which would feel more like an academic study than something personal.

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Subjects:

• NYC Fire

• Brooklyn 1980

• Brooklyn 1990

• Latino New York

Works Cited

TAB 2: Brooklyn

Luciano, Magen. Personal Interview. 6 May 2018.

Los Sures. Directed by Diego Echeverria, performances by Cuso Soto, Ana Maria Soto, Tito Lopez, Maria Aviles, and Jorge Borges. 1984.

Developed Photograph Folder. Photograph.

Child, older woman, and Television. Photograph.

Child, woman, and baby. Photograph.

Woman standing. Photograph.

Profile of child with man in background. Photograph.

Man, woman, and two children on couch. Photograph.

Man, woman, young boy and girl. Photograph.

Back of burned photograph. Photograph.

Posing woman. Photograph.

Boy sitting on bench. Photograph.

Woman on beach. Photograph.

Family posing in grass. Photograph.

Blurred photograph of girl. Photograph.

Man and two women on couch. Photograph.

Twister movie poster. 1996. Photograph.