Interview by EVG
Photos courtesy of Peter Bennett
In 2022, we featured the work of photographer Peter Bennett, whose color images captured the East Village and Lower East Side in the 1980s — from storefronts and street life to rubble-strewn blocks.
We talked with Bennett, who now lives in Los Angeles, about finally bringing the photographs together, shooting the neighborhood in the 1980s, what has changed — and what he hopes people who weren't here then will see in them.
"Vibrant Chaos — NYC’s East Village and Lower East Side" runs 158 pages and features mostly Kodachrome color images Bennett shot in the neighborhood during the 1980s. The self-published book is now available for preorder here, with shipping expected to begin in early October. Bennett will also be back in the East Village this month and hopes to find a few neighborhood shops to carry the book.
Bennett, a New York native who lived in the East Village from 1979 to 1988, has now collected those images in a self-published book, "Vibrant Chaos — NYC’s East Village and Lower East Side."
Many of the photographs were shot on Kodachrome, preserving a neighborhood more often remembered in black-and-white in vivid color. Bennett recently had 19 prints acquired for the Museum of the City of New York's permanent collection, while another 30 are going into the Village Preservation archive.
The book gave Bennett (seen below in a 1980s self-portrait) a chance to reconsider not only what he photographed, but how he views that era today. As he notes, it’s easy to romanticize the old East Village while overlooking the poverty and difficult conditions that were also part of everyday life.
What prompted you to turn these photographs into a book now?
I've been wanting to do this book for years, and last spring I had a publisher and was ready to go forward, but they pulled out at the last minute. Then things fell into place to self-publish, and it all kind of happened pretty quickly.
For years, I knew I had these photos. They had been scattered around in my archive and some other agencies. When I pulled them all together, I was kind of amazed at what I had. I think what makes them unique is that most of them were photographed in color on Kodachrome film, which literally looks as good as the day they were taken.
I recently had 19 prints acquired by the Museum of the City of New York for its permanent photo collection, as well as 30 photos going into the archive of Village Preservation.
For me, that was really when I knew that I had captured a bit of history and it needed to be out there.
How did you decide which images belonged in the book, and what did you have to leave out?
Self-editing for a photographer can be rough. We form emotional attachments to our photos, and of course we want to show as much as possible. But we risk diluting the story when we put in too many, so you have to be kind of brutal with your work if you want it to be regarded well.
I had in my mind how I wanted to organize the chapters, so from there, it was just curating it and culling it down to the best images that told the best story about each chapter.
You lived in the East Village from 1979 to 1988. At the time, did you see yourself documenting a neighborhood in transition, or were you simply photographing daily life around you?
I grew up next to Washington Square Park on West Fourth Street, but spent my teens hanging out on St. Mark's Place, at the Fillmore East and in other areas. I spent a few years in California in the 1970s, and then moved back to the East Village in 1979.
I was bartending at night and was just beginning my photo career when I was approached by a photo agency around 1984 to take photos of the "up-and-coming" East Village, things like trendy cafés and shops and so forth.
The East Village was getting a lot of attention, especially overseas, and I think they wanted to sell some stories.
I wasn't really interested in any of that, but I agreed to take pictures and just shot what I wanted to.
I don't know if they used the term street photography back then, but I was just taking pictures of my neighborhood. In the end, nothing I shot got published, which was fine because I think I ended up with far more interesting photos than they would've wanted.
What drew your attention when you walked the neighborhood with your camera?
Needless to say, it was a very colorful place and time, and just walking along St. Mark's Place, you were sure to see some interesting things and characters. But you can't depend on "the decisive moment," as Cartier-Bresson calls it, to just pop up when you need it.
So I would often see or find a place I wanted to photograph. Maybe it was an interesting location like a café or a storefront, or it was just the way the light hit the street, and I would wait patiently for a person or something to enter the frame and make the photo more dynamic.
I looked for gestures or facial expressions if they were visible, anything to complete the photo so that it's not just a two-dimensional picture of a building.
This way you're anticipating the decisive moment, as opposed to hoping it will just appear in front of you.
Photographing Alphabet City was a little tricky. I didn't feel comfortable walking around with expensive gear and attracting attention, so I would ride my bike around and look for things to photograph. I never had any problems, but I felt a little safer that way and could actually cover more territory.
The scenes of rubble and decaying buildings were overwhelming. Sometimes I would shoot candids of people down there if I felt I was unobtrusive enough, but often I would ask my subjects if it was OK to photograph them and try to be respectful.
Have any photographs in the book taken on a different meaning for you over the years?
It's an interesting question. Yes, the photographs I took in Alphabet City, especially ones where it was obvious that the people there weren't living their best lives. There was a tremendous amount of poverty and struggle, and I think I understand that better than I did at the time.
For instance, there's a photo of two women sitting on an old fridge or something on Fifth Street and Avenue C, with a Dead End sign next to them. I recognize now that's a pretty editorial photo, but obviously the juxtaposition struck me at the time and I took the picture.
Then there are also photos of kids playing in hydrants on 5th Street near Avenue D, and you can literally see the rubble and abandoned buildings all around them. In one sense, these were just kids having fun like kids anywhere else in New York at the time on a hot summer afternoon. But then I'd see them playing in the rubble and realize that is not like other kids in other parts of the city.
I walk through the streets now and see them tree-lined, with better housing, playgrounds with fences, and nice facilities.
And while it's easy to romanticize the past, it's heartening to see the changes on some of those streets from what they were.
Your images preserve many storefronts, street scenes and neighborhood characters that have since disappeared. What details do you think today's viewers will find most surprising?
That life was in color back then, hah. That's kind of a joke, but not really. I think so many people see a lot of black-and-white photos of the East Village in the 1980s, and it can make it look like ancient history. It's like when I looked at pictures of New York in the 1940s and thought the same thing.
I hope the photos convey the vibrant life that many of us were living back then. It was a neighborhood. It was a community. It was vital, and there was so much going on creatively and otherwise. It was also pretty crazy and changeable, and that made it exciting.
Obviously, I named my book "Vibrant Chaos" because I think that kind of describes things well. It was an affordable neighborhood, one of the last in Manhattan, and I think that allowed anybody who wanted to be there to be there.
That was always an important part of New York history until recent years, and I think it's a shame because communities are more fragmented now simply because of affordability.
When you return to the neighborhood now, are there any places where you still recognize something of the East Village you photographed?
I moved away from New York about 25 years ago because I was getting so bitter about all the changes I saw where I grew up in both the East and West Village. I didn't want to see that.
Now I go back and I cherish all the things that made the neighborhood what it is.
Yes, there are a lot of imposing new buildings, mostly around 3rd Avenue and a few other places, but for the most part, the streets and the neighborhood still look the same.
The storefronts change, the cafés come and go, but that's the history of New York. It always changes, and it can make you nuts if you let it.
When I walk around the East Village, I feel like I'm home. I love it there. Maybe I had to wait until all the places that replaced the ones I cherished were replaced, too. I needed at least two generations of replacement to feel OK again.
There is a laundromat on First Avenue near Ninth Street that was across the street from my old apartment. I used to look out my window and see all the crazy goings-on in front of it. That's still there, and so is Veselka. And my good friend Delenee still has her store, Cobblestones, on Ninth Street. She's a real OG of the neighborhood, and I'm glad she is still there.
What do you hope longtime residents — and people who never experienced the neighborhood in that era — take away from the book?
I think it's easy to look back at a special place and time you may have lived through in a neighborhood like the East Village in the 1980s. There's a tendency to think you own it because that's when it was good and better or whatever. And I know I have often felt that way and can mourn it and judge how things are now.
The fact is, the East Village has been around since the late 1950s, and before that it was part of the Lower East Side. These neighborhoods have existed for a long, long time and hopefully will exist for many years to come.
I think doing the book made me see the context of history. When you're young, you think where you are and what you're doing will exist forever. It's impossible to see how things will change.
I think I captured a small period of history in the East Village, and in many ways I see the book as a historical book as well as a photo book.
But the point is, the East Village and Lower East Side are still vibrant neighborhoods.
Looking at all these photos, as much as it makes me miss those days and yearn for some of those good times, also makes me realize how important the present is.
I saw your interview with Irene Mok a few weeks ago, who recorded and wrote a book about her life growing up in Lower Manhattan, and I thought, what an amazing young woman to have the foresight to do that.
I tell my photography students to photograph things as if they won't exist because they may not. They may have historical value and interest for the future.
I think the EV Grieve blog will be an important historical document for the future.
So what I hope people take away from the book is an appreciation for what was, but also for what is. And whether they were there then or not, there's always time to go there now.
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