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Interview with Essdras Suarez Myrtle Avenue People of the Market The Hidden Harmony Hans Leeuwenburgh on Street Photography Familiar Streets with a Singular Prism

Street Shooters of May 2018

Myrtle Avenue
ROBERT GERHARDT

In Tropic of Capricorn Henry Miller writes a fictionalized account of his life in Brooklyn in the 1920’s,
including the following passage describing Myrtle Avenue:

But I saw a street called Myrtle Avenue, which runs from Borough
Hall to Fresh Pond Road, and down this street no saint ever walked
(else it would have crumbled), down this street no miracle ever
passed, nor any poet, nor any species of human genius, nor did any
flower ever grow there, nor did the sun strike it squarely, nor did the
rain ever wash it.

For the genuine Inferno which I had to postpone for

twenty years I give you Myrtle Avenue, one of the innumerable
bridlepaths ridden by iron monsters which lead to the heart of America’s emptiness. If you have only
seen Essen or Manchester or Chicago or
Levallois-Perret or Glasgow or Hoboken or Canarsie or Bayonne
you have seen nothing of the magnificent emptiness of progress and enlightenment.

Dear reader, you must see Myrtle Avenue before you

die, if only to realize how far into the future Dante saw. You must believe
me that on this street, neither in the houses which line it, nor the
cobblestones which pave it, nor the elevated structure which cuts it
atwain, neither in any creature that bears a name and lives thereon,
neither in any animal, bird or insect passing through it to slaughter or
already slaughtered, is there hope of “lubet,” “sublimate” or
“abominate.”

It is a street not of sorrow, for sorrow would be human

and recognizable, but of sheer emptiness: it is emptier than the most
extinct volcano, emptier then a vacuum, emptier than the word God in
the mouth of an unbeliever.

Since Miller wrote that passage, many things have changed along the street between Borough Hall
and Fresh Pond Road, as well as the neighborhoods that Myrtle Avenue intersects: Fort Greene,
Clinton Hill, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Bushwick in Brooklyn, and Ridgewood in Queens. The
cobblestones have been paved over, the subway now only runs elevated at a few stations in
Bushwick, and the socio-economic makeup of those neighborhoods has steadily evolved.

Certain aspects of Miller’s passage still ring eerily true, however: Myrtle Avenue has seen race riots,
mass exoduses, high crime rates, the tension of gentrification, the influx of drugs, gang wars, and
the effects of AIDS on the population that has called Myrtle Avenue home. In the 1980s it was
known among locals as “Murder Avenue”, and the movie Do the Right Thing explored the ethnic
conflict among those who lived in Bed-Sty. On top of this history, the economic recession has hit the
area hard, and can be seen in the number of halted construction sites and empty storefronts along
the entire stretch of Myrtle Avenue. It is The Inferno that Miller alluded to in many ways.

However, from my work along Myrtle Avenue, seeking evidence and counter-evidence of Miller’s
claims, I came to believe that the more apt work of Dante to compare Myrtle Avenue to is that of
Purgatorio. Myrtle Avenue is no longer a street of utter despair and sorrow. But neither is it yet a
heaven of art and progress and the triumph of the human spirit. Rather, like those who inhabit
Dante’s Purgatory, there is hardship, but there is clear evidence of hope among the hardship.

The street is no longer damned to Hell with no chance of improvement, but rather waiting on a future
that will be better than its present. Myrtle Avenue, in fact, is a metaphor for America itself.
Meanwhile, flowers do in fact grow there, the sun does, upon occasion, hit it squarely, and the rain
does not spare it a cleansing. Perhaps the poets and saints and human genius do already walk
among its denizens, if only glimpsed with a more forgiving eye.

ROBERT GERHARDT
Rob Gerhardt was born in Augusta, Georgia in 1977, but grew up in the suburbs of
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. From an early age his parents exposed him to the arts
through many trips to museums and galleries in both Philadelphia and New York, as
well as during trips to Europe. Rob’s first exposure to photography came during his
junior year in college, when he took his first photography class with photographer
Harold Feinstein. And since falling in love with photography during that first class, Rob
has never stopped making photographs. In 1999 he received his B.A. in
Anthropology/Sociology and Art History from the College of the Holy Cross in
Worcester, MA. And in 2007 he received his M.F.A. in Photography from the Lesley
University College of Art and Design in Cambridge, MA. Rob’s work has been in numerous solo and group
exhibitions in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and is in a number of private collections including The
Museum of the City of New York in New York, NY and the Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, MI. His
work has also been published both nationaly and internationally, including in The Guardian, The Diplomat, The
New York Times, The Huffington Post, Newsweeek, Haaretz, and Suddeutsche Zeitung. He has lived and worked
in New York City since 1999.

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Articles
May 2018

Interview with Essdras Myrtle Avenue People of the Market

Suarez Robert Gerhardt photographs As a humanitarian
Pulitzer prize winning Myrtle Avenue, seeking photographer and filmmaker,
photojournalist and street evidence and counter- it is my job to find characters
photographer, Essdras evidence of the claims of in ordinary circumstances and
Suarez, shares some Henry Miller, who wrote a bring them to life in an
incredible stories and insights fictionalized account of his life interesting way.
on photography. in Brooklyn in the 1920s.

The Hidden Harmony Hans Leeuwenburgh Familiar Streets with a

One of the essential elements on Street Photography Singular Prism
of the photographer is his I think street photography, for Jean-Philippe's view of urban
ability to document and so the me, is about stealing from beauty will have you taking a
questions: What is Hidden reality to create a new - and second look at your own
Harmony? And can hopefully interesting - reality. town. Read on to learn about
photography demonstrate its how to combine and compose
existence? light, architecture and human
beings.

Street Shooters of May

2018
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