A Look At NYC's 'Forgotten Borough' In 1983 With Christine Osinski's "Summer Days: Staten Island"

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In 1982, artist Christine Osinski moved to Staten Island with her husband after being priced out of Manhattan, something many New Yorkers are all too familiar with. Brooklyn and Queens (though now even Brooklyn is becoming too expensive to live in) seemed to be the popular destinations for Manhattanites to relocate to, but one borough appeared to slink into the background: Staten Island.

Nicknamed “The Forgotten Borough” by its residents, upon moving there, Christine Osinski simply set out to learn more about her new home. Out of that curiosity came a collection of photographs featured in her new book Summer Days: Staten Island. The images, taken of the borough between 1983 and 1984, bring to life the working-class culture often overlooked in this part of New York City.

The images create a kind of time capsule that encompass the idea of small-town living even in a borough that is part of a major world city. Osinski describes in an interview featured in the book “this work is not a comprehensive study of Staten Island or even a completed work, rather it represents a fragmented journey.”

Two boys with Automobile

Today, the world of social media has us morphing certain images of New York City to our liking, often covering up reality with filters. Outlets like the Humans of New York blog attempt to depict the realities of the city we live in, but what separates Osinski’s book from this is not just the time period of the content, but her goal. It is a “fragmented journey,” an exploration of a new neighborhood she called home that developed into a project.

Devoid of skyscrapers and the chaotic traffic that defines the rest of New York City, just a short ferry ride away, Osinski’s photographs of, as Paul Moakley, whose essay accompanies the book puts it, “candid portraits of strangers, vernacular architecture and quotidian scenes reveal an invisible landscape within reach of the thriving metropolis of Manhattan.”

Today, Professor Christine Osinski teaches Photography and Foundations of Color at the Cooper Union School of Art. Below are just a few of the images featured in the book to give you a taste of the content. Summer Days: Staten Island book release is set for April 2016 but you can already buy it on Amazon.