Peter Bennett is a photographer who grew up in Greenwich Village and lived in the East Village from 1979-1988, bartending by night and photographing the neighborhood around him by day.
In the latest addition to the Village Preservation historic image archive, he has shared some of his photographs of the East Village in the early 1980s.
During the 1980s the East Village was an international mecca for artists, musicians, and writers, as well as drifters, punks, homeless kids, and anyone who genuinely wanted to live in an environment where anything goes.
Longtime residents, which included the Polish, Ukrainian, Latin American communities, as well as holdover hippies, watched as their neighborhood underwent an enormous transition.
Sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, the result was a colorful explosion of culture, art, and fashion, where old met new and a vibrant community tried to find its way.
Bennett’s images show an intimate first-person view of the places, people, and streets that defined a quintessential New York City neighborhood at the time, where many traditional structures had broken down, leading to abandonment, anarchy, regeneration, and renewal.
In the archive, you’ll see open air flea markets, punk street life, rubble-strewn lots, colorful murals and storefronts, beloved community institutions, and playful scenes of city life — with guest appearances by Keith Haring, Mick Jagger, and Keith Richards.
Explore the Peter Bennett Collection: The East Village in the Early 1980s.
Village Preservation’s historic image archive now contains over 5,500 images in over 70 collections, most donated by the public, showing the history of our neighborhoods and landmarks of New York City from the late 18th through the early 21st centuries. Access the entire archive here.
Read more about photography in New York State.
Source link
