all images copyright © richard renaldi, 2005. all rights reserved.

I have photographed the area of Manhattan adjacent to the Hudson waterfront in the West Village, an area known simply as "the Piers". I have long been attracted to the openness and wide horizons along this particular stretch of the Hudson; one feels as though they were on the remote edges of the city. It is here where people go to find solitude, friends, and recreate from the fast pace of New York life. It is a landscape composed of water, concrete, fence and sky, where the changing quality of the light is reflected throughout each day in its reflections on the buildings lining the Jersey shore opposite and on the shimmering surface of New York harbor in the distance.

My intention throughout this project has been to convey the unique character of this urban space as well as the faces which populate it: dog walkers and joggers, drag queens and dropouts, muscle boys on roller blades, homeless veterans, Stonewall survivors, elderly couples out for a Sunday stroll, sunbathers, and curious tourists -- black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, and every category in between.

With the recent incorporation of this once derelict space into the newly created Hudson River Park, the Piers themselves have undergone many changes over the course of my project. As such, my photographs represent as much an affirmation of the new vitality the space has engendered over the past two years as they do an elegy for a community that is in danger of disappearing forever.

I have put together this website to give viewers a sense of the scope of this project and of my creative vision. My hope is to share this photographic document in several possible formats, including an exhibition and published book. By doing so, I hope to create a visual testimony to the remarkable vitality, diversity, and beauty of this area of New York City.