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When the first structures were being built in Coney Island in...

Mon, 20 May 2013 12:37:25 -0400

When the first structures were being built in Coney Island in the 1840s, the surrounding community was in uproar. Residents wanted to preserve the land’s natural beauty. In the early 1900s, the City of New York endeavored to condemn all buildings south of Surf Avenue and the amusement community of Coney Island opposed the city. Amusements on the beach were demolished under the direction of urban planner Robert Moses in the ’40s and ’50s. He cleared the land for the New York Aquarium, Abe Stark Ice Skating Rink and low-income housing. Once Moses was through with his Coney Island renovations, only a few areas remained protected for amusement use only and that small designation was a response to public complaints.

Fred Trump attempted to build luxury apartments on the beach in 1964. He spent a decade in court fighting for a rezoning to no avail. By the 1970s, few visitors traveled to Coney Island and the city attempted to bring popularity back to the area with gambling casinos, taking note from Atlantic City. Gambling remained illegal in Coney Island, however, and vacant lots dominated areas that would have been lined with slot machines and card tables.

Under Giuliani’s reign, the sporting complex called Sportsplex was erected. Because the Thunderbolt roller-coaster stood in the line of view from the stadium, Giuliani had it demolished one early morning. Bloomberg took interest in developing Coney Island, but when the Coney Island bid for the 2012 Olympics was lost, the plans for revitalization went to the Coney Island Development Corporation. A company called Thor Equities began buying up property in Coney Island and while evicting businesses along the boardwalk, they released a plan to build a luxury resort as well as a new amusement park. The city approved a plan to construct 4,500 new unites on the beach in 2009. Part of what makes Coney Island what it is is that the community has long-offered low-income housing, but only 900 of these new units are categorized as being “affordable.”

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Model: Alessa Pomerantz Photography & Editing: Ben...

Sun, 19 May 2013 15:44:45 -0400

Model: Alessa Pomerantz

Photography & Editing: Ben Britz

Dress for sale here $58.

By: Elizabeth Seward

Mon, 13 May 2013 18:10:08 -0400

By: Elizabeth Seward

Models: Ashley Campbell & Sarah Berman &...

Mon, 13 May 2013 10:54:00 -0400

Models: Ashley Campbell & Sarah Berman & Nico

Photography: Sean Crowne

Editing: Elizabeth Seward

Model: Alessa Pomerantz Photographer: Ben Britz Editing:...

Sun, 12 May 2013 14:44:00 -0400

Model: Alessa Pomerantz

Photographer: Ben Britz

Editing: Elizabeth Seward

The flowers have fallen; summer is near. Photography &...

Sun, 12 May 2013 12:13:00 -0400

The flowers have fallen; summer is near.

Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth Seward

By: Elizabeth Seward

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:38:00 -0400

By: Elizabeth Seward

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:54:04 -0400

By: Elizabeth Seward

The future is now?

Sat, 11 May 2013 14:44:24 -0400

The future is now?

My way of protesting sleep tonight.

Sat, 11 May 2013 00:28:32 -0400

My way of protesting sleep tonight.

The traffic of New York City is behind me now. The trees to each...

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:48:13 -0400

The traffic of New York City is behind me now. The trees to each side are becoming increasingly taller; the sky is growing darker. We’re heading up to a friend’s house in a small town upstate called Germantown. He moved out of Queens and up there a few years ago with his girlfriend in an effort to find some peace and quiet away from the city but still within arm’s reach. As a working writer, my friend still comes to the city regularly for meetings and whatnot, but his main workspace is now situated on a farm surrounded by fields. The hazy blue outline of the Catskill Mountains sits at his yard’s horizon. I’m driving up to spend the weekend in his house with some mutual friends, my husband and my two dogs. My husband is going to go skiing for the first time this winter at a place called Catamount, which is just across the New York/Massachusetts border. I am probably not going to go skiing. My husband is much better at it than I am and I don’t want to hold him down, nor do I want to ski alone. Also, the idea of skiing without health insurance makes me a little bit nervous. I’ve only skied once and I don’t trust that my legs have enough muscle memory to take the falls that are aimed for my neck.

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New York City, easy. Model: Gary Leyder Photography &...

Mon, 06 May 2013 14:19:21 -0400

New York City, easy.

Model: Gary Leyder

Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth Seward

Night becomes Brooklyn. Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth...

Mon, 06 May 2013 10:00:18 -0400

Night becomes Brooklyn.

Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth Seward

New York City sunset. Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth...

Sun, 05 May 2013 10:00:18 -0400

New York City sunset.

Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth Seward

Spring in New York City. Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth...

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:31:36 -0400

Spring in New York City.

Photography & Editing By: Elizabeth Seward

Model: Audra Bailey Photography & Editing: Elizabeth Seward

Sat, 04 May 2013 18:27:55 -0400

Model: Audra Bailey

Photography & Editing: Elizabeth Seward

After spending two years in Austin, I moved back to New York...

Wed, 01 May 2013 15:46:00 -0400

After spending two years in Austin, I moved back to New York City in October and into the relatively elusive neighborhood of Green-Wood Heights Brooklyn, directly across from the Green-Wood Cemetery. My first thought was, “At least the neighbors are quiet.”

I spent my days walking past the cemetery and looked onto a sparkling pond beyond the iron gates nearly every day. I admired the Gothic Revival style gates at the main entrance every time that they were in view. During Hurricane Sandy, I took some comfort in the fact that the highest point in Brooklyn, Battle Hill, is within this cemetery. I suppose I thought I would simply sit atop the hill if my street flooded and wait for the waters to recede. I listened to stories about an urban colony of parakeets that live within the cemetery. I once lived in an apartment in Brooklyn alongside an industrious little parakeet named Handsome who flew away one late summer morning. I awoke to an odd silence that prompted me out of bed and wandered sleepily through the halls until I discovered an open window and an empty cage. Although I thought the stories of born again birds to be folklore, I privately hoped them to be true. I sometimes catch myself wondering how Handsome adjusted to his first outdoor winter when he found a permanent home within the immortal gates of Green-Wood Cemetery.

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Living in a small town gave me an affinity for any and every...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 17:01:49 -0400

Living in a small town gave me an affinity for any and every sign of urbanity as a child. I didn’t care what it was so long as it signaled that many people from many different places were living within one area and generating ideas together, or at least in the midst of one another. Having been born in Baltimore and raised in the country in Ohio, my family took frequent trips back to the East Coast while I was growing up. I always knew we were in the city when I saw graffiti. And sometimes I was lucky and spotted more than just graffiti – bona fide street art. Street art has appealed to me in this nostalgic way ever since. And because we don’t necessarily expect it to be good, it takes us especially by surprise when it is.

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I was driving around the West Coast aimlessly in February of...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 17:09:11 -0400

I was driving around the West Coast aimlessly in February of 2011. It was chillier than I hoped it would be, but I bundled up. I’d been thinking about California’s Highway 1 longingly ever since I drove down it in 2007 and I’d been hoping to replay the visuals I’d stored with such care in my quick-draw, long-term memory. I didn’t get far along Highway 1 before I was asked to turn back – the roads were flooding from the pooling of the incessant rain. When I was driving around the coastal roads of Oregon and California in 2007, I was driving south toward the launching city for my summer tour and sleeping in my van. In retrospect, I think I was trying to recreate that experience in 2011.

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(Photos By: Ben Britz) It’s the weekend of one of New York...

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 16:01:15 -0400

(Photos By: Ben Britz)

It’s the weekend of one of New York City’s Holi Festival of Colors and spring is just beginning to appear in the cloudless and bright blue sky. This particular event is being held outdoors in an elusive location in East Flatbush, Brooklyn. The address was only released a few days ago and it seems attractively random. The nearest subway train is a mile from the fenced parking lot that will set the stage for the night. I know little of what to expect because although Holi is traditionally a Hindu celebration held for the sake of spring and oneness, this isn’t an exclusively Hindu event and I suspect a lot of people will probably be on drugs and with that in mind, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a religious event like this one before. Even if only tangentially religious.

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