Mother with one of her nine children

Mother and daughter on Dubois Street. One of nine children.

Finely dressed Vietnam veteran

Driving home from the City Terrace block party (outstanding Jamaican disk jockey and dancing from 50 year-old mothers), we passed three men in the bus shelter on the corner of Broadway and Liberty. Tavares said, "Did you see them?" We stopped and walked back. Two of the men said no to photographs but the third said yes.

He is a Vietnam veteran. I asked him if he had seen Full Metal Jacket. "The only one," he replied. After a pause he added, "And Apocalypse Now." 

Later I asked Caroline if she thought the three men were waiting for a bus. "Oh, no, the bus shelter is the senior citizen center."

August on Broadway

 

                                                                                                                                                Photograph by Caroline Kasterine

Our sound crew crossing Broadway in Newburgh to film Amina. Amina is a librarian who collects books that are donated by libraries and parents. She loads them on to wagons and gives them away to children on the streets of Newburgh. 

The Fullerton Cultural Center are helping by allowing books to be dropped off at their carriage house. Amina and her two children are seen in the video below on a recent 93 degree day on Lander Street, distributing books from one of their wagons donated by a Newburgh resident. The success of this endeavor is one example of the generosity that  exists in Newburgh.

My two sound recordists, Veronica, age 18 and Tavares, aged 23, are both Newburgh residents whom I trained from scratch. Not difficult; Veronica is a singer, and Tavares a music lover who has experience with studio recording.

 

Advice to the city council

Two sisters of Liberty Street give their views on what must be done with the city they love.

Remembering a tragedy, Newburgh NY

A young woman looks down the street where her brother crashed his car into a tree as he was being chased by the police. He died on the way to hospital.

Harlem comes to Newburgh

Harlem: a man comes to rest in Newburgh. Where better?

Father, mother and daughter, Newburgh NY, 1997

With a view to interviewing or recording conversations with some of my subjects from my book Newburgh: Portrait of a City, I recently asked Veronica, our production assistant and fixer, to look at a number of photographs in the book to see if she knew any of the people in the photographs, or their whereabouts. Below is one of the pictures I showed her. She recognized the 13 year-old (now 31) and knew where she lived although she did not remember her name.
Yesterday we went round to her house but she was not there. While we stood outside talking to the neighbors, a car drew up and a middle-aged woman climbed out followed by a younger woman. "That's them," said Veronica. The mother's name is Jacqueline Burnett. Her daughter is Natalie.

Mother and child on Liberty Street, Newburgh NY

Fearing an accident I have relinquished the driving in Newburgh to Caroline so that I can look for subjects with both eyes. But it was eagle eyes herself who spotted this mother and child. (They were on her side of the street and she had stopped at a light.)