[GODREKR]

Urban Cave is a story about the resilience and humanity of people who live “homeless” on the other side of conventional society in New York City. It is about a group of individuals and the full spectrum of their lives, rather than their deprivations alone. The images are in response to the beauty of a place, a people, and the dignity, determination, and perseverance of this particular long-term homeless culture.

Fragile and resilient, tragic and beautiful, self-destructive yet surviving, neither more than us, nor less than us they are a part of us. And they are apart from us. Nothing is simple in the shadows of the street.

I began the project in 2007 and finished in 2010, when the city evicted the tunnel residents and local restaurateurs walled off the Batcave. Some of the people depicted in the project have been placed in assisted housing or city-run family shelters. Most are having trouble with the transition. Most keep one foot back on the streets. During 2012, I photographed the people again to update this story. I have collected some bits of text written by the men and women. I plan a book of six chapters. Chuck and Lisa, Brooklyn, Country and Snow White, Krissy, Zoe and Jamaica, and The Street. -Andrea Reese

Click on pics to enlarge.


Chuck and Lisa lived in their makeshift home in the Amtrak tunnel for more then nine years.


Chuck waits for his companion.


Chuck shares his small but well protected makeshift home, high up in the walls of the tunnel, with his companion Lisa.


Lisa, several months pregnant, collects some things for the baby she will have.


Chuck returns to the tunnel with some food.


Chuck and Lisa, pregnant go to apply for a home in a city run shelter for families.


Jamaica and Zoe take refuge in the subway. They stayed there regularly for more then two years but now hope to change their life and to get married.


After being evicted from track 13 in 2004, Willy made a home in a box near the train station. He is still on the street. He can hear the trains pass underneath him.


Brooklyn has lived in the tunnel for more then twenty years. She found her home by following a pack of feral cats.


After moving into assisted housing Brooklyn found it hard to leave her cats behind. She comes to the tunnel daily to clean up and to reassure her pets.


Geo takes a "homeless shower"


Snow White helps Krissy who is sick with a life threatening illness, to dress. A drug dealer hit her when she tried to intervene in an argument.


Chuck visits his first home in the tunnel to see if anyone is staying there. He tells one resident that the police are threatening an eviction.


Country in his home in a derelict sanitation facility known as the White House.


Chuck is having a difficult time adjusting to shelter life. His caseworkers want him to find a job but he is having several health and mental health issues that make finding and holding on to a job difficult. He spends his time soliciting money on the streets, doing odd jobs for various building Superintendents or lying in bed.

[THELORDABORTION]

Holy shit! Mole peoples o.o

[JohnFrash]

Great post. I want to know sooo much more.

[kellyhound]

people from the underworld

[yknotme]

"Dark Day's" is a great similar doc!