May have accidentally started me a new project. A few months back I was wandering around my old neighborhood with my wide angle when I noticed a notice on a couple of the buildings. For those of you unfamiliar with these sorts of things, that's one of the first symptoms of a bad case of gentrification.
There goes the neighborhood... Had to snap a few shots before they were gone. Once that was done I promptly forgot about it until I was once again wandering there a couple weeks back.
Fuckers hadn't wasted any time. Both buildings were gone and they were already working on foundations for the new ones. Seems this case is advancing quickly.
I've lived in Louisville since 2004, gotten to watch several other neighborhoods gentrify in that time but this is the first I've realized what was going on in time to document it. Usually it's a case of waking up to find your rent has doubled and you're starting to miss the sound of gunfire.
By then it's way too late to get 'before' shots. Any of you photographers ever did a long term photo project? My attention span is best measured in seconds so I've always shied away from anything requiring me to stay on track for years.
Should have some nice reminders with this one though. Wonder what the zoomer equivalent of hipsters will be?
We used to joke that there was a quota of hipsters that had to die in an area before gentrification could succeed but this area long ago exceeded any quota. The old mantra "A gunshot a day keeps the gentrifiers away" seems not to have held true unfortunately.
This has turned into a mess. Stay tuned, in another few months I might remember to go back and then I'll treat you to more photos of construction sites!