Bye Brooklyn

If earlier in life someone had told me I would be sad leaving New Jersey, I probably say, “Why the hell would I be in Jersey?”

And yet here I am, covering the Everything Jersey City Festival, sad that it is one of my last assignments with the Jersey Journal. Walking down Central Avenue, looking over the beat I had come to know and love, I see familiar faces looking back. They are the people and friends I met in the gritty city. People like photographers Rich McCormack and Joe Shine who almost always beat me to a story, and let me know about it. People like the Mayor and the Council members who I saw rise and fall through scandal and corruption. They shake my hand, recognizing a member of the “Jerky Journal.” I see the families I met as victims, and the faces I covered as villains. They smile and wave.

As much as I want to stay, I can’t afford the Tri-State area anymore. As much as I want to follow Jersey City into her great, dismal story, I can’t find a viable way to keep working as a photojournalist. I’m leaving for something else back West, although I do not know what.

Driving back to Brooklyn, my neighborhood looks like it is burning. There are fires everywhere, with hoards of men in thick, black suits dancing around them. I live in Borough Park, which is the largest Orthodox Jewish community outside of Israel. The Hasidic Jews are performing the traditional burning of Chametz. The atmosphere is jovial, yet I cannot shake an eery feeling coming from all the flickering flames. Even as I join my neighbors in the street and smile and dance politely, the images from the night feel like a sign to go.

A few weeks later, my younger brother is kind enough to come out to New York and help with the 3,000 mile drive West. After I pick up Sam from the airport, we arrive to chaos along my block. The street is cut off to all traffic, as a crowd of Jewish men scuffle around the familiar yellow police tape. An ambulance screams by us. Only a few doors down from my own, the street is stained with a long streak of bright red blood, the hemoglobin still heavy with oxygen. A Hasidic school bus struck a pedestrian crossing the street and critically injured the person.

As Sam and I investigate, I notice a Canon camera and L series lens (similar to my own set up) broken in half. Blood is smeared underneath the lens. While I have often explored my neighborhood, camera in hand, I have never met another other photographer in Borough Park. It’s not exactly a tourist destination. I ask a few witnesses what happened and can only establish the victim was a young man in his 20’s. The TV news can’t even get an ID, reporting only that “a young man with a camera was killed while crossing the street.”

At some point while still peering between the crowd, Sam leans over to me and says, “That is fucking ominous.” I couldn’t agree more. It may be time to say bye Brooklyn.