In the 80’s I was a young kid of Italian heritage growing up
in a working class New Jersey neighborhood not unlike the Staten Island in
Christine Osinski’s pictures, but man, these pictures seem like a foreign land
out of a National Geographic story on rearing of working class children of
Italian descent. It’s amazing how clear pictures of specific moments can seem
so foreign yet so familiar. I can’t remember kids with little greaser hairdos,
but I do remember running around shirtless unsupervised, covered in dirt and
hanging out in older kids’ cars. It is a testament to Osinski that the
neighborhoods seem so inclusive, that the photographer and now by extension the
viewer seem so much a part of the goings on. We get to be kids running down the
street seeing who is home in hopes of getting into an adventure before called
in for dinner. And as the people in the pictures progress, you get to witness
the kid down the block turn into an awkward teen or a confident young adult.
This is wonderful work about life in a working class neighborhood on the outskirts
of New York in the 80’s. The pictures help me remember it clearly.
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1 comments:
Must be such lovely memories. Kids today. Can't have even half that freedom. You both look so nice dressed in your matching outfits.. intentional, or in a group together! ??? WKH..
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