A pictorial portrait of a block in East Harlem. Everyone here is struggling, lost souls down on their luck and down and out. It is a desperate place where crime, violence, poverty, mental illness, addiction, and homelessness all exist simultaneously. Some of the misfortune is self-made. Some not. We may not walk in their shoes but we can meet them here and get to know something about them and the realities of their lives.

A year after I completed the photographs and interviews the block looks very different. Businesses have closed. Buildings sit empty, awaiting change as a neighborhood awaits development. A mobile command post is now parked on the block 24 hours a day. We can stare truth in the face or we can walk on by. The subjects shared their stories and their lives. Their stories are no less than an American tragedy.