Photographer Ben Marcin grew up in Baltimore and has lived there for decades since, but it wasn’t until a few years ago that he began to notice a unique phenomenon in what he dubs the “rougher sections” of town: a single kerbside home with no direct neighbours to either side. These multiple-story structures weren’t built to stand alone; at one point, the Colonial-era row houses were situated wall-to-wall along most streets in the area.
The vacant spaces intrigued Marcin, who has made a career of capturing solo abodes located off the beaten path. So he began driving around and snapping pics of these unique architectural survivors left in the wake of industrial decline and the “violent nature of the drug trade”, which he states has ebbed considerably but not before many of these lots were abandoned and subsequently demolished by the city — after which they become squats for stashes. “There are very few of them, by the way,” he tells Gizmodo. “In this way, the documentary series will preserve these somewhat lonely urban elements before the next incarnation goes up.
“But at some point, it occurred to me that the socio-economic and demographic issues that caused these conditions would not be unique to Baltimore.” So after exploring neighbourhoods nearby, he took to the internet to examine satellite maps of Camden and Philadelphia for new subjects. Oftentimes, by the time he arrived, they were already gone. [Trendland]
