Twenty-two years ago I crossed the Hudson River from my home in Garrison, NY and drove into Newburgh for the first time.All around me were very young, very beautiful men and women. I asked a shirtless youth if I might take his picture.”No,” he said, “and I should get back into your car and go home.
I tried again a few days later and never had another serious rebuff. I had everything going for me, I thought, I speak funny and I am too old to be a cop.”
Newburgh is the once prosperous city, renowned for its industrial output and resplendent Victorian architecture. Beginning in the early 1960 the markets fell away, urban renewal came and 1,300 buidings were destroyed but never rebuilt. Newburgh has had many false starts to rebuild and restore the city.
Today, sixty-five years on, the city is still a place of crumbling buildings, crime and violence. Will this present city government succeed where all the others have failed? In 2012 a book of my portraits was published, together with an exhibition of mural size prints on the wall of the Ritz theater. (It is still up.)
Then came the film. After listening to stories of imprisonment, teenage parenthood, drug addiction, unemployment, poverty, violence and corruption I began on my own to record encounters with citizens in the street.
The film is an essay. It is a one sided account of the life of the residents of downtown Newburgh. The film offers no conclusions, no tales of redemption or magic solutions to unemployment, and Newburgh's future is left hanging. No one in authority, either in the police or government, is given a speaking part in this film. This was deliberate, I wanted to hear and see only the people I was drawn to.
There is Toni Rose, a single mother with three children. Now 33, she tells us how Newburgh is becoming a place only for those with money. All that is being done to reshape Newburgh, she believes, is to benefit newcomers who can afford the rapidly rising rents.
“Nobody cares about us. We’re nothing to them,” she says, referring to the city councilors and landlords.
I came across subjects and opinions in unexpected and obscure places. I was assisted by a crew of three local, young people, whom I took on as paid apprentices and instructed them in camera and sound techniques. No professional crew was employed.
Some of my original portraits are blended into the film. Many unstated events and feelings come out through these portraits. There is an underlying sadness in the film but also great beauty, warmth, grace and hope.
Newburgh: Beauty and Tragedy
A film directed by Dmitri Kasterine
Produced by Caroline Kasterine
Website which includes trailer: www.newburghbeautyandtragedy.com
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