dude has been photographing and videotaping the downtown scene before it became plagued with chain stores and high rise condominiums. before it was safe to have lunch or walk your doggy in THOMPKINS SQUARE PARK, because the homeless and junkies lived there in tents.

the NYC we all know and love wasn’t always so clean and safe as we know it today (although, due to the economy, i have a feeling things are about to get ugly all over again). there was something so pure and beautiful about that time, i’m addicted.

anyways, check out the trailer for the documentary about him: CAPTURED. done by my friends BEN and DAN. the film is brilliant.

“Since 1979 Clayton Patterson has dedicated his life to documenting the final era of raw creativity and lawlessness in New York City’s Lower East Side, a neighborhood famed for art, music and revolutionary minds. Traversing the outside edge he’s recorded a dark and colorful society, from drag to hardcore, heroin, homelessness, political chaos and ultimately gentrification. His odyssey from voyeur to provocateur reveals that it can take losing everything you love to find your own significance.”