When I moved to NYC in 2003, I was immediately struck by the city's unique neighborhood convenience stores and their ubiquity. In 2010, while student-teaching in lower Manhattan, I began to notice what seemed like a sharp decline in the number of cornershops on my walk from the subway to Avenue D, and began strategizing how to document these iconic storefronts. In 2013 I spent 9 months walking every street in Manhattan and photographing each bodega I saw. Seven years later, many of the nearly 1300 independent corner shops I documented no longer exist; this project preserves a very specific moment in the ever-shifting city's history. Prints are available here.
