Tompkins People

About the Book

The photographs in this collection, made by photographer Abraham Menashe, focus on the people who frequented Tompkins Square Park, located in New York City’s East Village. Menashe made the photographs between 1997 and 1999. In this two-year period, Tompkins Square Park provided asylum to a variety of indigent people, including runaway teens, the mentally ill, prostitutes, substance-abusers, vagabonds, and the homeless.

This distinct and diverse human family offers the viewer an encounter with the sacred and the profane, coexisting on common ground. We encounter a troubled teen, a neo-Nazi, a battered woman, a senior citizen feeding pigeons, an assortment of lovers, an exhibitionist, volunteers with food for the hungry, a man meditating, a dancer perfecting his form.

The extreme “characters” have since vanished from the park. Today, boutiques and developers have made their imprint on a run-down neighborhood seeking a face-lift. These images mirror and preserve a unique period in the park’s rich history, a time when the savage and the tender found harbor on public soil.

To view the complete series as and read an interview with the author, go to humanistic-photography.com.

About the Author