BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  The old Lower East Side produced a long list of creative individuals whose output and contributions were instrumental in altering the consciousness of America and the world, in so many fields: music, art, poetry, writing, theater, film, photography and video, political thought, religious philosophy and on and on. If I had [...]

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  My goal with these photos is to give some positive exposure to those hard-working people who make our life easier, but whose existence is given hardly more notice than a passing shadow. As someone who grew up at the bad end of the working class, I have never lost my love [...]

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  In making decisions and choices regarding who I am and how I view the world, all I really have to reflect on are my own experiences. As it turns out, I do have a connection to Mitt Romney. It starts with the fundraising speech he made that was caught on video: [...]

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  I am troubled and saddened by the fact that America is losing its middle class and becoming a country divided into the rich and the poor. Romney certainly made that point clear with his recent statement, saying 47 percent of the population is basically made up of non-taxpaying freeloaders seeking a [...]

David Peel, at right, played the Tompkins Square Park band shell circa late 1980s at a concert protesting the Lower East Side’s gentrification.

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  After watching the Ai Weiwei documentary, “Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry,” I was somewhat surprised by the parallel between his journey and my own. Elsa and I moved to the Lower East Side in 1979 when the city was still a down-and-dirty place. In 1981 I had an art career moving forward [...]

BY CLAYTON PATTERSON  |  André’ Charles, a.k.a. The Underground Artist, in the early 1990s came down from the Bronx with the desire to take down Chico and become the leading Lower East Side street artist. For a period of time he gave Chico a run for his money. He burst on the scene and quickly [...]