No book is made by just one person, and this book is the product of many people's care over more than twenty years.
First and foremost, at the heart of this book is the brilliance and generosity of my tour guides in Brooklyn and Oakland. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Amanjot, Julia Bryant, Mike Halkias, Neville, Ulysses, David K., Tanya Moore, Tewolde, Earl Marty Price, and David Whitbeck. You have taught me so much. And I hope this book can do justice to honoring the memory of the extraordinary Cynthia Evangelista Astuto and the unstoppable Lois Jackson, two wise storytellers gone way too soon who I hope knew how much I valued their tours and, even more, their trust, their insight, and their friendship.
I began these tours in 2001, but this book really began long before that. My family are the best New York storytellers I know. My parents, Winifred Bendiner-Viani and Paul Viani, raised me on those stories, and taught me to be curious, to be a walker, to be a photographer like my dad and an artist like my mom, to be a New Yorker, and I thank them for all of that, but most of all for their boundless love and support always. My aunt Jessica Bendiner introduced me to some of the first places I ever really experienced placework, often as we hung out drinking cafés con leche, and I can't thank her enough for all those hours, and for her love and her unfailing listening. The memory of my grandparents Elmer and Esther Bendiner grounds everything I write.
Dear and brilliant friends contributed so much of themselves to this book and the other iterations of this project: For years, I have loved sorting through photographs with Rebecca Tuynman, and I have treasured the close readings and brilliant comments Amy Reddinger made on every version of this writing. They each gave me my first guided tours, patiently opening my eyes to the wonders of Los Angeles and of Schaefferstown. This book would never have happened without the hundreds of diner breakfasts with Emily Harney—especially at George's—during which we talked about this project and a million other things, over two decades. Since we first met working out how to make photography our careers, Bilyana Dimitrova has been a kindred spirit of unstinting support. Kemi Ilesanmi's friendship inspired me to imagine the parts of my work into a whole. Prithi Kanakamedala suggested forming our own writing group just when I needed it most, and I can't thank her enough for our time together, her generous comments on this work, and for her own excellent Brooklyn book. Jodi Waynberg's curatorial eye was invaluable as I thought about the photo portfolios, and Connie Rosenblum's editorial generosity and encouragement is unmatched. In California, this fish-out-of water New Yorker was so lucky to have found such photographic kinship and friendship with Susan Schwartzenberg and Janet Delaney. Margaret Morton assured me this group of photographs could be a book, and I hope it honors her memory.
At the MIT Press, my editor Victoria Hindley has at every turn truly gotten and supported the interdisciplinarity of this book, while her insightful critiques and suggestions have always made it better; I feel incredibly lucky to have found her. Thank you to my colleague Kristen Lubben for getting it too, and for helping me find Victoria and MIT. Gabriela Bueno Gibbs, Kathleen Caruso, Melinda Rankin, and the whole MIT Press editorial team have been a pleasure to work with, and my thanks to designers Yasuyo Iguchi and Jay Martsi for their patience and beautiful work. Thanks also to Nicholas DiSabatino and the whole MIT Press marketing and publicity team for shepherding this book so thoughtfully. Finally, my deepest thanks go to the anonymous peer reviewers of this book, whose comments encouraged boldness and centering my tour guides’ voices.
I began asking for people's guided tours when I was in college, and since then, for more than twenty years, Gary McDonogh has been my mentor and friend through every life and intellectual turning point. I began these particular guided tours in graduate school, and I could not have made it through the dissertation I would write based on them without my friendship, conversations, and collaborations with the extraordinary Yvonne Hung, Zeynep Turan, and Judith Kubran. This project grew immensely through working with my advisors at the CUNY Graduate Center: Geoffrey Batchen, David Chapin, Setha Low, and Susan Saegert. Clare Rishbeth has encouraged these tours across oceans since visual sociology brought us together two decades ago, and Lorena Zárate Soneyra's friendship taught me what it means to make the right to the city really real. Beyond those named in this book, many other people took me on guided tours in Brooklyn and Oakland and in other cities, and I thank them all for teaching me so much.
Writing about the Guided Tours projects in, and getting editorial and peer-review feedback from, the journals Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, disClosure, Space and Culture, and Visual Studies helped evolve my thinking over the years. The different forms of this guided tour work—each informing what is now in this book—have been supported by many organizations, including the Watson Foundation, Humanities New York, and the Citizens Committee for New York City.
In this work's public iteration, my committed and enthusiastic collaborators Gib Veconi of PHNDC and Melissa Morrone, Taina Evans, and Philip Bond of Brooklyn Public Library made Intersection | Prospect Heights possible. Everyone who interviewed their neighbors and everyone who told stories of place in interviews and story cards for the Intersection | Prospect Heights oral history project were essential; I thank Akosua, Bob, Cleone, Gina, María, Myriam, Paulette, Rhoda, Robin, Rocky, and Samantha for the way their stories deepen and nuance the arc of this book. Everyone who joined an Intersection walk or event, or brought this project to their students taught me the kinds of conversations that are possible. Most especial thanks to Judy Pryor-Ramirez who used Intersection in her teaching in ways I'd never imagined and whose friendship is so sustaining. Listening to the Intersection panelists Tom Angotti, Regina Cahill, Catherine Mbali Green, Deb Howard, and Letitia James apply the project to their activism and policymaking transformed the way I thought about this work in the world. Thanks always to Mike, John, and Mary Halkias for making George's such a wonderful place, and for hosting the very first trial run of the Intersection story cards idea. Huge thanks to Abdul Jawad and Frank Widdi for letting every Intersection walk begin inside Met Food/Foodtown, and for making everyone always feel so welcome.
Two people came into this book by surprise—and I can't thank them enough. Jean, who appears in the image on the cover of this book, reminds us all what placework feels like. Though I've been unsuccessful in my many attempts to find him in the neighborhood twenty years after taking the picture, I hope he will accept my thanks. And Dave Dixon, whose shop I walked into with Neville many years ago was welcoming and generous at the time and, if possible, even more so when I called him up out of the blue and asked if he remembered our visit, which, twenty years later, he did.
In Oakland, where we had fewer roots, the people who made us feel at home were my aunt Tauny Ruymaker who's been welcoming me into her home and her Oakland since I was a teenager, and our neighbors Amanda Burton, Cynthia Astuto, and JoAnn Castillo, who were so excited to help us learn to love the West Coast. And I hope this book honors the memory of the indomitable Ethel Ruymaker whose home and worldview reminded me so strongly of my own grandparents’, and who was such a joy to talk with about the Bay Area.
Books are written while lives are being lived and children are being raised, sometimes in the most difficult of times. The people and places who help us make community everyday are a big part of this book. Amy Ward and Sarah Butler, teachers at Muscota New School PS 314, reached through the Zoom screen of remote schooling in the depths of COVID into our apartment to help us still feel part of a community. And Rosa Miller grounded us and celebrated a shared love for Oakland and the 510 area code. Being in community with, hatching plans with, and learning from both Sara Kotzin and Tanya Birl-Torres have brought so much to my thinking while writing this book. Conversations in playgrounds with Deepali Srivastava-Sussman and Andrea Homer-McDonald about work, books, politics, and parenting, while knowing that they would take care of my kid as I would theirs, have been a gift.
Vicky Limberis, Santiago Miralrio, Arturo (Margarito!) Miralrio, Luis (Lucas!) Garfias, Peter Mousadakus, Erick Lopez, and Katerina Limberis-Katehis are much missed: their diner in Washington Heights, Vicky's, was one of the finest sites of placework I can think of, and their friendship was a rock for our family. And, like many of the places in this book, Vicky's was a victim of the pandemic and the unfettered commercial rents of the New York real estate market. The neighborhood hasn't been the same without them.
And not one of these things would have happened without Kaushik Panchal, my partner in the truest sense of the word in life, work, artwork, parenting, finding community, imagining, dreaming, and everything else. Since the day we met, it's been my honor to make things with him, and he's made these guided tours so much better and more beautiful. Our life together is the basis of this book—starting from when we got married on Vanderbilt Avenue in 2001. He's got my whole heart.
And finally, as always, this book is for Luca, who is my inspiration, who knows the meaning of placework in his bones, who is endlessly resilient and optimistic, who turned a magical eleven as I finished this book and will be twelve by the time it's in print, whose celebratory hugs make finishing a draft so much sweeter, who I couldn't love more, and whose own brilliant books I know I will read in the future.