Photographer David Gonzalez
writes, "Thirty years ago this summer, I returned to the South Bronx, where I grew up, with a Yale diploma in one hand and a beat-up Pentax camera in the other. Raised to get a good education, become a doctor and escape, I had instead come right back to teach photography — on Charlotte Street, no less, the world’s most famous slum." His
New York Times essay and multimedia slideshows revisit the images and memories from his work from 1979, and open a window into the legendary South Bronx, presenting what my friend (and IAM Board president) Mark Meehan calls "an urban narrative of hope."