In 1989, when New York City was taking hits for its crime problems and the world had been seen buildings burning in the Bronx, the administration of Mayor Edward I. Koch decided that part of the solution was to document the problem.
Larry Racioppo was an ex-carpenter who knew his way around a camera as well as a hammer, and the city hired him to archive the broken and the ugly in buildings the city had acquired from "bankrupt, indifferent or criminally negligent landlords," New York Times photography columnist David Gonzalez writes.
The project makes for an interesting story, with 19 pictures, in The Times column "Lens."
