Harlem Stories

Wednesday July 27th, 2011

Sean Gilligan lives in Harlem. One day, while walking along his street, he met an old neighbor named Peanut. Peanut began telling Sean about their block and the history held within. Sean learned how Peanut had once been a great dancer and about their neighbor Poncho, a legendary conga player who’d once played for Fidel Castro during his historic visit with Malcolm X. Enthralled by these stories, Sean soaked in as much in as he could. Then, last winter Peanut passed away, and Sean realized how many stories he’d taken with him. At that moment, Sean became committed to gathering and sharing the stories of his fellow Harlem residents.

Sean’s new found passion for Harlem’s stories progressed from there and morphed into a personal project of sorts. As he dug deeper, Sean found himself drawn to the music that filled his neighborhood streets. Sean explained, “In summer, in the evenings, our neighbor plays his trumpet out of his third floor window and it’s often stopped me dead in my tracks. I just have to stop to listen.” Sean decided he wanted to share his tight-knit community of hardworking entrepreneurs, artists and local business owners with the rest of the world. He believes Harlem was in the midst of a modern day Renaissance and felt the need to document this. So with this in mind, Sean began work on a book that would, “highlight the creativity and determination of the people of Harlem, and how great that creative force is that sustains them and nurtures their community.”

Sean began his process with photographing neighborhood artists and musicians, all of which have been incredibly interesting and unique. When asked who’s been his most intriguing subject to date, Sean replies, “That’s difficult to answer because everyone I have photographed so far has me furiously jotting down quotes from them during our shoot.”

I asked Sean what was his biggest challenge in getting this project off the ground,

Like any photographer knows, access is always the key ingredient and the first step. The best advice I have ever received about gaining access and developing trust with people I wanted to photograph was “Get There, Be There, Stay There” and the rest just works itself out. My biggest challenge is always how to break the ice with a new person who I see who I haven’t met yet, I question if its appropriate for me to just walk right in and introduce myself? And I worry about, what if I’m not welcome? But, experience has shown me that once someone senses my genuine interest in them, I’m usually pleasantly surprised at how fast people open up, when the opportunity is there for them to do so.

Through this project Sean says he’s, “learned more about human nature, others and myself.” When picking subjects for this piece Sean would ask himself a simple question, “What do I have to learn from this person?” Throughout the process, he’s found some very compelling answers to that question.

I ended our conversation by asking Sean what he loved most about Harlem. He replied,

How caring and interesting its residents are. Everyone has a story. It’s one of the last true New York neighborhoods where history and tradition remains. Harlem is part of New York but it’s it’s own thing entirely.  Its quiet up here when the rest of the city is reeling, yet, if you listen closely, you can hear people talking, laughing and truly enjoying life, in a very relaxed, non-Manhattan way.  There’s something old about Harlem, something different that’s hard to define but easy to experience and something that is most definitely evolving into something new.

Sean won a PDN Faces award for his portrait of Harlem resident Floyd Bryan Davis. Heep an eye out for his book as it will be on shelves soon.

- Maria