KILL CITY: Lower East Side Squatters 1992-2000

With roots in the  punk rock music and  art  scene in Memphis, Tennessee, during high school, Ash Thayer gravitated toward this same community while she attended the School of Visual Art in Manhattan. Living in a squat began as a housing necessity, and this milieu quickly became an inspiring place to document the abandoned buildings that had been appropriated and trans­formed into functioning homes, including the vibrant street life of the neighborhood and por­traits of her eclectic squatter community. Thayer's images bring the complexity of gentrification and housing to the fore­ front. The struggle for shelter brought together  diverse subjects to share in construction  project in their dwellings, to prepare community dinners, and to host legendary punk shows.

A selection of this archive was published as a monograph Kill City: Lower East Side Squatters 1992-2000, by powerHouse in 2015.

Do not use, recreate, or post without explicit permission. All images copyright Ash Thayer.