In "Brooklyn Is" (1939), James Agee describes the event of walking away from the city and into Brooklyn, as he writes, “Behind you the whole of living is drawn up straining into verticals, tightened and badgered in nearly every face of man and child and building; and how where you are entering, even among the riverside throes of mechanisms and of tenements in the iron streets, this whole of living is nevertheless relaxed upon horizontalities.”

Brooklyn has become increasingly popular. As someone who was born and raised in Park Slope, I have seen this first hand. In response to overdevelopment, I have been working on a project for Brooklyn Utopias involving the projection of images of old Brooklyn onto luxury condominiums. I hope to present a Utopia that is possible- one where the only structure built on cleared land is land itself,-land which is ,as Agee described, “rich earth and of this earth is an enormous farm, whose crop is far less “industrial” or “financial” or “notable” or in any way “distinguished” or “definable” than it is of human flesh and being…

- Jess Levey