From Pia Peterson’s article for Buzzfeed News:
Meryl Meisler is a photographer and artist who spent 31 years teaching in New York City’s public school system. Her work looks back at students at Intermediate School 291, as well as the streets of Bushwick in Brooklyn and the dance scene where she spent her free time. Her book, New York Paradise Lost, shows Bushwick’s streets before the massive development of the area, and the queer party scene of New York in the 1970s. “I hope it’s uplifting to everyone else as well,” she said. “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. There’s a lot to be said about transformation and gentrification, but 40 years later, people want to live there.”