Revisiting Out and About in the East Village

From 2012 to 2017, East Village-based photographer James Maher contributed one of our favorite recurring EVG features: "Out and About in the East Village." 

Nearly every week, James headed out with his camera, stopped someone who lived or worked in the neighborhood and asked about their life and the East Village. 

More than 200 interviews later, the series became something of an oral history of the neighborhood, with residents recalling everything from the burned-out buildings and cheap rents of the 1970s and 1980s to the squats, artists, small businesses and community activism — and the changes brought by rising rents and gentrification. 

James has now gathered the project into an extensive East Village Oral History on his photography website, organizing the interviews and photographs around the themes and stories that emerged during those five-plus years. 

There's also some Maher family history in the mix: His great-grandparents settled on Fifth Street between A and B in 1899, and his mother was raised at 507 E. Fifth St., above the space that's now Sophie's. 

You can spend quite a bit of time going down this particular East Village rabbit hole.