Grand Dreams On the Far Edges

September 8, 2012, 10:00 am

By JOHN LELAND

#flashHeader{visibility:visible !important;}

When the photographer Emily Berl visits a place for the first time, she said, she likes to go to its farthest edges, because she knows she will find something interesting happening there. In New York this instinct took her to Coney Island, the neighborhood defined by the two things it was not: the amusement park and the beach. “Thousands of people go to the amusement park and never walk the three blocks into the neighborhood,” she said. “There was just so much life there that I didn't know existed.”

Ms. Berl, 27, began exploring the neighborhood in March 2011, “just driving around, taking pictures,” she said.

The first person she got to know was Charge (Slides 2, 11 and 13), a rapper and hip-hop producer who instinctively understood why she wanted to photograph the area, she said. “Usually people say, ‘Why do you want to take pictures of this?' He got it.”

Ms. Berl met people at churches and food pantries, in stores and at the Gravesend Houses, a 12-acre public-housing complex built in 1954, which cemented the identity of the neighborhood.

Through Charge she met Kamesha McClain (Slides 3, 14 and 15) and her 3-year-old son, Amir. Then she met Lamon Stewart, who wanted her to be witness to his message on an empty beach (Slide 18). Like Charge, they had grand aspirations: Ms. McClain, 21, to make it as a model; Mr. Stewart, 18, to be a rapper.

“Everybody wants to be something, but that's true in every neighborhood,” said Ms. Berl, who is in the process of moving to Los Angeles, another terminus defined by amusements and ocean. “Everyone I met was like, ‘I want to be a musician or a model or an M.C.' I find myself drawn to people who have big dreams. Some will succeed; some won't. But people dreaming big is always interesting.”