Relive the Empty, Industrial Streets of 1990s Williamsburg

Mara Catalan has been capturing street life in North Brooklyn since the '90s, and her incredible photos show it. The Madrid-born photographer's early work stems from when she first moved to the city in 1990 and served as an apprentice darkroom technician while pursuing her own projects on the side. Calatalan's photos of Williamsburg before the hipsters took over—showing desolate streets, run-down factories, and a distinct absence of trendy stores, restaurants, bars, and waterfront residential towers that line its streets today—are currently on view at Picture Farm on Wythe Avenue until May 29. The show calls it "wild Williamsburg, a time before convenience and highrises." Go on, revel in what Greenpointers calls her "grainy, black and white shots that depict what most people who were here at the end of the last century tell people that arrived in this century—what the 'hood was like back when they arrived." Stay tuned for more, too, because Catalan is working on a book.

The show also contains a map with thumbnail versions of Catalan's photos that reveal where they were taken.

· Mara Catalan [official]
· A Place I Once Called Home: Williamsburg [Mara Catalan]
· New, Old Photographs of the Neighborhood: Catalán @Picture Farm & Salamone @GCA Salon [Greenpointers]