I have a second-degree reverence for parks and political demonstrations. Dad was a shooter in the 60's in Berkeley, and has quite a visual collection of LSD'd youngins fighting the man in People's Park. Reason #1 why Q. Sakamaki's recent book hit a chord.

Sakamaki's 'Thompkins Square Park' documents the unsoundness of the East Village in the 1980's. Public New York spaces used to contain a lot more rowdy and a lot less dog runs. Granted, impoverishment and homelessness may have made for better visuals, but the dreaded urban G word did clean up the severe drug abuse and dilapidation of the East Village.

After the New York documentation, Sakamaki became an international war photographer, and moved away from shooting domestically. It's interesting that many of the images of Thompkins Square Park resemble images of war. I suppose not seeing dead bodies from drug overdoses and 'heroin in candy stores' has made the current East Village battleground a peaceful one. I guess I have third-degree reverence for times was a little more feist in my current neighborhood...