Project 30W
Project 30W is about the residents of 30 W. Chicago Ave., the Lawson House YMCA. Located between the upscale River North district and the Magnificent Mile, it is a 583-unit SRO which houses mostly low income and some formerly homeless individuals. These people are sometimes Katrina survivors, abused women, rich kids trying to rough it out, computer programmers, alcoholics or foreign scientists who have had a run of bad luck.
I work in the same building they live in – the corporate offices of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago occupy the first four floors of the Dearborn side. My interaction with residents is limited. For years, I looked down on “the residents”, liking to believe their misfortune could not happen to me. This was too simple a way to look at them, so I started advertising my project in the resident lounge and asking for volunteers to be photographed. The residents I have photographed so far are on this web site. Many have provided me with a unique view point of their experience at 30W.
In my original attempt to document the people in their rooms, I used a wide angle lens to capture as much detail as I could of these very small spaces where I could barely fit a tripod. In doing that, I also distanced myself from the residents. That was not accidental, since I generally distance myself from people in both photographs and in life.
Since meeting these individuals, however, I have gotten to know some of them a little better. I’ve seen Oliver go from his rib joint cook job to get a second job for the City of Chicago as a traffic coordinator. Tommy has recently gotten a job as a bus driver with the CTA, and recently called me to tell me he’s going to give his copies of the pictures I took last week to his mother and friends. William and his invisible girlfriend hang out at the Starbucks where I get my morning tea, and last week was the first time I “saw him” there. He’s probably been there every morning.
That is Project 30W.
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Project 30W is about the residents of 30 W. Chicago Ave., the Lawson House YMCA. Located between the upscale River North district and the Magnificent Mile, it is a 583-unit SRO which houses mostly low income and some formerly homeless individuals. These people are sometimes Katrina survivors, abused women, rich kids trying to rough it out, computer programmers, alcoholics or foreign scientists who have had a run of bad luck.
I work in the same building they live in – the corporate offices of the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago occupy the first four floors of the Dearborn side. My interaction with residents is limited. For years, I looked down on “the residents”, liking to believe their misfortune could not happen to me. This was too simple a way to look at them, so I started advertising my project in the resident lounge and asking for volunteers to be photographed. The residents I have photographed so far are on this web site. Many have provided me with a unique view point of their experience at 30W.
In my original attempt to document the people in their rooms, I used a wide angle lens to capture as much detail as I could of these very small spaces where I could barely fit a tripod. In doing that, I also distanced myself from the residents. That was not accidental, since I generally distance myself from people in both photographs and in life.
Since meeting these individuals, however, I have gotten to know some of them a little better. I’ve seen Oliver go from his rib joint cook job to get a second job for the City of Chicago as a traffic coordinator. Tommy has recently gotten a job as a bus driver with the CTA, and recently called me to tell me he’s going to give his copies of the pictures I took last week to his mother and friends. William and his invisible girlfriend hang out at the Starbucks where I get my morning tea, and last week was the first time I “saw him” there. He’s probably been there every morning.
That is Project 30W.
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