Elia Kazan's 1954 film On the Waterfront was based on the world of Red Hook longshoremen. I just read that originally the film was going to be written by Arthur Miller and called The Hook, but the House Un-American Activities Commission pressured the studio to change Miller's script. Miller refused and dropped the project. With the new writer, Budd Schulberg, the title was changed.

As I get ready to move, I know the proximity the the water is one of the things I'll miss most, hence my posting another picture of fishing and the piers. In the foreground is my old friend Elijah Miller. Elijah is a songwriter who works at B61, a bar on Red Hook's northern border with Carroll Gardens. In the background, that faint point on the horizon is the Statue of Liberty.

An ode to American food.

I shot these on the same day, two winters ago. They didn't excite me when I developed the film at the time, but they've grown on me so I'm sharing them now.

It was swings and a mask on this August day after a rain storm in Coffey Park. I was glad I had b&w film in my camera because I think it makes the mask something more mysterious and the swing more timeless. Some of their friends were more cautious about being photographed by a stranger, but these two insisted on getting their moment in front of the camera and I appreciate that they did. (Tip of the hat to Ralph Eugene Meatyard- a photographer with a great name, who used masks in some of his photos of his family in the rural south 40 years ago.)

Here are two views of the fire hydrant on Delevan Street that was open for more than a week in mid-July. First children were cooling off in it. Then people were driving their cars through the spray for a little rinse. Then the children got soap and buckets and set up a little car washing business. They told me they were raising money to build a skateboard park.

This strip of sidewalk runs between West 9th Street and Mill Street, past the Police Athletic League building. I've been fascinated by it because it's almost always fenced off by a tall wrought iron gate, chained shut. (I had to stick my camera through it to get this picture.) Maybe it's blocked off to prevent people from from taking these barricades, which are collected there- themselves blocking nothing.