From Pia Peterson’s article for Buzzfeed News:
Meryl Meisler is a photographer who, for over 30 years, was a teacher in New York City Public Schools. This exhibit, which looks back at her until recently unpublished work taken in Bushwick in the 1980s, will surely be a trip back in time. We spoke with Meisler for our weekly photo newsletter about her most recent book, New York Paradise Lost, which the Photoville show also pulls from.
Working on the book helped her stay grounded during the last year and the difficult time the world was going through, she said. “I hope it’s uplifting to everyone else as well. The 1970s was a bad period in New York. People were running away from the city, and look what happened: Artists moved into all these empty spaces. New music arose. A neighborhood like Bushwick that went through such hard times, so much history, it has transformed as well. There’s a lot to be said about transformation and gentrification, but 40 years later, people want to live there.”