1 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina. Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
2 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina looking out the window of her apartment. The scars on her back are the result of third degree burns she suffered in an apartment fire when she was a child.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
3 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina sitting on her bed.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
4 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
A school photo of Nina’s eleven year-old son on the floor of her apartment.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
5 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya looking at a photo of her first grandchild, whom she has yet to meet because she is estranged from her daughter (the child's mother).
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
6 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Babygirl with scratches she got fighting another girl while she was in prison.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
7 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sidewalk graffiti. Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
8 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Smoking crack in the car on the way to visit Delilah in the hospital. East Harlem 2007
9 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Babygirl trying to catch a date.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
10 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
The Haunted. Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
11 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina standing on the corner where she works.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
12 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Talking to a customer.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
13 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Getting high and watching TV.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
14 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya and Babygirl.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
15 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Stacey trying to stop Sonya from fighting with Gladys.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
16 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya and Gladys fighting in the apartment on Seneca Avenue. The apartment is rented by an old man named John, who sometimes let the women crash there as long as they keep the house clean and occasionally give him free sexual favors.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
17 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya opening presents from Babygirl.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
18 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Saint Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of lost things, the poor and travelers.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
19 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Babygirl getting ready to go out to work.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
20 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina on the street in front of the building where she lives.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
21 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
22 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Working the streets. Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
23 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Waiting for customers at night in the street.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
24 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina in the street at night.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
25 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina standing in the doorway of her apartment.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
26 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Babygirl smoking a cigarette.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
27 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Watching live video footage from the building's security cameras.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
28 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina in bed watching television.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
29 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina in bed. Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
30 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
A summons Nina received for the crime of "loitering for prostitution".
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
31 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina frying pork chops for dinner.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
32 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Porn DVDs, Sweet 'n Low and toilet paper.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
33 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Hundred dollar bills, welfare benefit card and soda. Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
34 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya getting high in an empty apartment.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
35 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
A colorful plastic ball Sonya found on the street.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
36 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya with a handful of cash.
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
37 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Sonya's laundry hanging to dry in the bathroom. Hunts Point, South Bronx 2008
38 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Babygirl in bed. Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
39 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Nina getting ready to go out.
Southern Boulevard, South Bronx 2007
40 of 40
© 2021 Tiana Markova-Gold
Hunts Point, South Bronx 2007
Private Story
"you must not know 'bout me.."
Credits:
tiana markova-gold
Updated: 09/11/10
I met Nina one early spring evening in 2007. She was standing on the corner by herself, wearing tight jeans and a puffy black fur jacket. I introduced myself to her and began photographing her that evening. Over the next several months, I spent many days and nights with Nina, a street-based sex worker in the desolate, industrial neighborhood of Hunts Point in the South Bronx. I photographed her in her home and in the streets where she works. During this time I met other women working in the streets of Hunts Point, including Babygirl and Sonya. I saw how these women form a community, often taking the place of estranged family. I saw how isolated they are from everything outside this small circle and how often they are completely alone, walking the streets day after day and night after night. As I continued to work with these women, it became clear to me how vulnerable they are to abuse and how few resources are available to them. Almost all of the women I met working in the streets of the South Bronx have been in jail numerous times and face problems of drug dependency, health issues, homelessness, and relentless harrasment by law enforcement.
When I began making photographs in Hunts Point I wanted to make pictures that countered negative stereotypes and helped the viewer relate to the people in the pictures. I wanted people to see the women in the photos as the complex human beings they are and not as objects of pity or contempt. I struggled with the project, in part because what I found in Hunts Point was a tremendous amount of despair, anger and pain and not very much joy or hope. I photographed what the women showed me of their lives and I tried to do so in a way that neither dramatized nor romanticized what was happening.
It was very important for me to share the work I was doing with the women I photographed so I frequently brought prints for them. I was surprised that they often really liked the pictures and would frame them or make collages of them and put them up on the wall. Their responses to the photos made me feel that I was portraying them in a way they were comfortable with; that they felt I was showing them as they are.
Also by Tiana Markova-Gold —