By the 1970s, Charlotte Street had become a national symbol of the devastation of the South Bronx. Redlining, disinvestment, landlord abandonment, population loss and New York City’s fiscal crisis left blocks of buildings burned, abandoned or demolished in predominantly Black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods. Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan both visited the area, bringing national attention to its decline. The landscape that became synonymous with urban collapse was eventually cleared and redeveloped with new housing.

My family lived in the Mount Hope section of the Bronx until 1964, when I was eight, before moving to a white New Jersey suburb. I returned to the South Bronx with a camera in 1978 and photographed Charlotte Street. What I initially saw as extraordinary urban destruction later became connected to my own childhood memories of race, neighborhood boundaries and the quiet lessons about where people were supposed to belong.