179th Street

I got in through a Bronx friend and a motorcycle club I'd been trying to photograph. I made friends with a few of the members at their clubhouse, and they were the ones who brought me up into the dens. They vouched for me, kept me safe, and translated when I couldn't follow the Spanish language. Without them I never would have gotten in.

For six months I rode the subway up from Midtown. I gave myself that long and no more for this photo essay. I'd spend the whole day with people — out on the street, then back upstairs to get high. The buildings had no power. When it got dark I ran down to East Tremont Avenue for candles and photographed by them. I pushed my film hard with my Leica M6 rangefinders so the grain came apart, because that's how everything up there felt.

Cathy is the one with the crack pipe near the window. She and Sharon shotgun the smoke through a straw between them. The woman on the bed I never got a name for — she's the one on the heroin, feeling the rush. They knew what I was doing and gave me full access. After a while I was just the guy with the camera, and then I was just there with them.

One of the last times I went up, they were gone. Nobody knew where. I never found any of them again.