Trending
The Meatpacking District’s amazing transformation: PHOTOS
Photographer revisits gritty 80s scenes nearly three decades later
Two years ago, photographer Brian Rose stumbled upon a collection of negatives he snapped nearly three decades earlier. They showed a bleak, desolate pocket of Manhattan — the Meatpacking District — by day. In the images, the droves of abattoir workers had packed it in for the day, having completed their morning butchery and its attendant packing and shipping.
Lucky for followers of the city’s transformation that Rose unearthed the undeveloped negatives — and even luckier that he revisited the Meatpacking District last year to recapture the scenes. The result is a stark contrast between the industrial landscape of the 1980s and the playground of the affluent that has taken hold today.
The study in gentrification is collected in Rose’s new book, Metamorphosis: Meatpacking District 1985 + 2013. You can see more here. — Tom DiChristopher