Photo: Eddie and Tiffany, 2009.
Created in the 1930s, Orchard Beach was proclaimed “The Riviera of New York.” The 115-acre, 1.1 mile-long beach is part of Pelham Bay Park, situated in the very northeast corner of the Bronx. Orchard Beach was constructed by notorious parks commissioner Robert Moses, one of the most polarizing figures in the history of urban planning in the United States. Although Moses was never elected to any public office, his public works were among the most influential in shaping the course of the city’s history. Orchard Beach shares with Moses a compelling yet complicated legacy.
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During the 1970s, when the city was going broke and the politicians united under a policy of “benign neglect” to enact a policy of negligence so profound it is clear evidence of systemic racism, Orchard Beach (like all of the Bronx) suffered deeply. The park areas had been vandalized while the sand was filled with broken glass. The water was so filthy you wouldn’t even think about it. But as the borough began to slowly rehabilitate, the beach came alive once more as the center of Borinquen culture in New York.
Untitled, 2005
As Lawrence recalls in the foreword to the book, the photographs were made on a journey of healing after his brother David had been murdered. Natives of Saint Kitts, the brothers spent their earliest years surrounded by water, playing on the shore. As Lawrence writes in the book’s foreword, “I thought about how many other brothers and sisters, born as pure souls, become statistics of their environment as David had, unable to transcend the circumstances they were born into. I wanted to build a body of work that my children and yours could ponder long after we’re gone. I wanted to find a way to confront issues of race and class using a visual language that would speak to everyday people.”
Kerm, 2011
Orchard Beach is that language, encapsulated in a book, between two hard covers, across 152 pages in color and black and white. We are here, alongside Lawrence, on his journey, meeting the colorful souls that make the Boogie Down Bronx the epicenter of Hip Hop history. It is here that they come to relax and unwind, to party and to enjoy the city’s seaside. It is here that you may find a slice of New York life at its core: the Puerto Rican, Italian, Cuban, Dominican, Ghanaian, Panamanian, Albanian, Irish, and Korean.
As David Gonalaez reveals in the book’s introduction, “In the Bronx, what you see is what you get—unhidden, unflinching, and unavoidable.” It is this truth that Lawrence tells in each photograph, each portrait a study of belonging and purpose.”
Kye, Kaiya, and Kamren, 2009
All photos: © Wayne Lawrence, 2013. Courtesy of Prestel.
Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer, curator, and brand strategist. There is nothing she adores so much as photography and books. A small part of her wishes she had a proper library, like in the game of Clue. Then she could blaze and write soliloquies to her in and out of print loves.
