A Photographer Captures The Perils, and Hopes, of Children Growing Up in The Bronx
The Leonard Lopate Show | Nov 18, 2014
Photographer Stephen Shames tells the story of a 1977 assignment to the Bronx, where he began photographing a group of boys coming of age in what was at the time one of the toughest and most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States. They lived in a "family" they created for protection and companionship on streets ravaged by poverty, drugs, violence, and gangs. Shames spent the next two-plus decades following the boys, as the crack cocaine epidemic devastated the neighborhood. His extended photo essay Bronx Boys, with contributions by Martin Dones and José "Poncho" Muñoz, chronicles their lives and the fights, shootings, arrests, and drug deals that left many of the young men dead or in jail.
