Goodbye Melbourne, Hello New York | NYC Photography Blog | New York culture and lifestyle » apartment

day 444: not another fire (this time in my building)

Nat Ma — Mon, 10 May 2010 02:03:33 +0000

Early this morning I heard lots of fire engines blazing on my street which is not unusual for LES. I thought nothing of it until I heard a frantic voice yelling on my floor ‘fire fire, fire in the building, get out now! get out!’ So still half asleep I put some pants on and grabbed my camera (yes the only possession I could think of taking was my camera) and evacuated out to the smoke filled hallways. Luckily the fire was extinguished very quickly and not much harm was done to the building unlike the grand st fire I witness on a few weeks back.

day 317: NYE 2010 – True New York LES Apartment Party Styles

Nat Ma — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 03:46:43 +0000

< day 316: hampton town

day 317: NYE 2010 – Party People 1

Nat Ma — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:47:47 +0000

< day 317: NYE 2010 – True LES New York Apartment Party Styles

day 317: NYE 2010 – Party People 2

Nat Ma — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 03:48:21 +0000

< day 317: NYE 2010 – Party People 1

day 317: NYE 2010 – Party People 3

Nat Ma — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 03:56:39 +0000

< day 317: NYE 2010 – Party People 2

day 304: first snow

Nat Ma — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 05:56:27 +0000

Tonight was the first snow in NYC for this winter. This is a shot outside my apartment. It was a pretty massive snow storm.

< day 303: A Rockerfeller proposal

day 109: evicted!

Nat Ma — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 17:46:15 +0000

I was evicted out of my apartment today because the tenant I was subletting off hadn’t paid the rent for 4 months! I was woken up with loud knocking and shouting outside my door, by the US Marshal . He told me to get dressed, grab what I can and get out as it was illegal for me to stay there. They changed the locks and literally I was kicked out on the street. The whole process and situation was absolutely inhumane. The Marshal was a complete jerk that didn’t want to listen or bother to care outside of his duties. You would be glad to know that eventually it was sorted out between the tenant and landlord. I was allowed back in after 6hrs but a shocking experience nonetheless.

< day 107: maria the missile launcher

day 84: east village courtyard party

Nat Ma — Mon, 11 May 2009 02:40:48 +0000

Every weekend there would be excessive noise coming from the courtyard at back of our apartment. This weekend I decided to capture what was going on.

day 75: tenement on orchard st

Nat Ma — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 23:58:20 +0000

This is a tenement building on Orchard st, Lower East Side, which is one of the many that sprouted up in the 19th Century. There’s an interesting tenement history in NYC. These apartments targeted immigrants who literally ‘got off the boat’ and were created by opportunists (who were immigrants themselves) to combat overcrowding during the migration influx.

Far from luxurious, each apartment had a ‘front room’ (only room with natural light), kitchen and bedroom at the back and on average 7 people lived in one apartment. They had, no shower, no bath and no toilet (it was only in 1867 when the first of the tenement law was enacted that 1 toilet was required for every 20 people). Garbage was disposed of in boxes set in front of the house. A description printed in the New York Tribune in 1863 summed it up:

“composed of potato-peelings, oyster-shells, night-soil, rancid butter, dead dogs and cats, and ordinary black street mud, (the garbage boxes formed) one festering, rotting, loathsome, hellish mass of air poisoning, death- breeding filth, reeking in the fierce sunshine, which gloats yellowly over it like the glare of a devil whom Satan has kicked from his councils in virtuous disgust.”

Tenement Building. Orchard St, Lower East Side.

day 74: I wake up to a shoot in my lounge room.

day 74: waking up to a shoot

Nat Ma — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 23:21:45 +0000

This morning I woke up to Amanda doing a test shoot in our lounge room. So I did what every normal person would do – I shot the shoot.

day 73: waiting at delancy st station