This photograph was made in 2002 -- a time when Williamsburg, which I considered a diverse and "Utopian" community, was beginning to change in a visible and tangible manner. I made this photograph to illustrate that Williamsburg was becoming unrecognizable. Now, in 2009, this picture is more timely and topical than when it was originally made.

This photograph shows reflections in a store window transforming houses on Bedford Avenue. Traditional row houses, shown contorted in my photographs, are now dwarfed by taller and shinier housing structures in Williamsburg. They are also neighbors to vacant lots and partially-completed or stalled buildings that are part of the highly speculative real estate boom. Additionally, retail spaces on the ground level of row houses on Bedford Avenue and other Williamsburg streets have changed dramatically, as owners of meat markets and bakeries, in their spaces for decades, have been priced out by rent increases.

To me, much of Bedford Avenue and other Williamsburg streets is not identifiable, and appears more like a canted hallucination.

- Jill Corson