Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611

  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The East Village Then and Now

The East Village Then and Now

Root, Daniel
McGough, Peter
Morgan, Bill

Hardcover

General PhotographyNortheast

Publisher Price: $40.00

ISBN10: 0789215152
ISBN13: 9780789215154
Publisher: Abbeville Press
Published: May 12 2026
Pages: 240
Weight: 3.24
Height: 0.99 Width: 10.15 Depth: 10.12
Language: English
When photographer Daniel Root moved to the East Village in the early 1980s, this constantly changing neighborhood was in one of its periods of greatest ferment. Multiple immigrant groups maintained enclaves there--including Ukrainians, Puerto Ricans, Italians, Dominicans, and Poles--even as drug dealers plied their trade in abandoned buildings and young artists flooded in looking for cheap rents, followed close behind by real estate speculators. Through his lens, Root captured a young Madonna filming Desperately Seeking Susan on St. Mark's Place; the storefront galleries of the East Village art scene; Life Cafe, where Jonathan Larson would write--and set--Rent; retirees playing chess in Tompkins Square Park; junkies fleeing the police. Forty years later, Root--still an East Village resident--has returned to the very same places where he took those pictures, to document how the scene has changed.

Root's then and now photographs, presented together in this volume along with his wry commentary, document the transformation of a legendary New York neighborhood for better and worse--higher rents, yes, but lower crime; displacement, but also the persistence of community and creativity. A foreword by renowned artist Peter McGough and noted Beat historian Bill Morgan shed further light on the history of the East Village. This will be an essential volume for all downtown denizens, past, present, and future.

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