The Goody Kids by Jill Freedman

NEW YORK, NY November 22, 2006 —New York has long been considered a city of the arts. But that doesn't mean it’s a haven for artists. The intermittent incomes of the self employed can't always keep up with the skyrocketing cost of living. Sometimes the city can seem downright hostile to the creative class. Photographer Jill Freedman has been documenting New York and its characters for nearly 4 decades. She's been called one of the underrated masters of the medium in this month’s Popular Photography Magazine.

But all her critical success has not led to financial stability. As part of our ongoing series on poverty in New York, WNYC’s Kathleen Horan spoke with Freedman in the Greenwich Village neighborhood that was her last real home.

Jill Freedman stands across the street and squints her blue eyes as she considers a 4 story glass condominium on Sullivan Street. She opens her mouth for a minute, lets it hang open and then says - "damn". She knew the place when a brownstone stood there

"24 years I lived there...its heartbreaking."

She hasn’t lived there in more than 10 years but it was her last real New York home.

"It was 150 when I moved in and when it hit 1000 he tripled it and I was out."

It was the beginning of a downward spiral that led to the financial problems she struggles with today. But it’s hard for Freedman to talk about. She wants to be remembered for her pictures - not her circumstances. She’s used to documenting other people’s lives- (not her own).

So we go to a loud restaurant where she feels more comfortable talking about herself. Freedman stared taking pictures after college and a trip abroad in 1966:

"I picked up a camera, I had no beginning pictures...I went right out on the street-borrowed someone else’s camera. I just woke up and wanted one out of nowhere."

She worked as a copyrighter for a couple of years to support her photography habit and then quit after she had her first show. She immersed herself in documentary photography:

"I used to just wander around the streets and shoot. It was a small town - it was neighborhood then and now it is just real estate. A lot of the heart has gone out of it - a lot of the soul. I wonder where the real New Yorker’s have gone...?"

Freedman’s rent controlled apartment gave her the freedom to spend years shooting pictures for books-(including 2 documenting the lives New York firefighters and street cops). She made little money but thrived knowing she had found her life’s work and an apartment that doubled as a studio.

Soon after she had to vacate her place -things got even harder. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and somehow didn’t qualify for Medicaid. But a doctor agreed to treat her in spite of her lack of coverage:

"I was very lucky. There was a doctor that didn’t know me from Adam -he helped me. He said it is ridiculous that someone like you can’t get help - and he did it. Dr. Sven J. Kistry- Columbia Presbyterian."

She is cancer free today. But as she approaches her late 60’s - she still doesn’t have insurance:

"You have to stay healthy and not go to the doctor"

She admits money was never her focus:

"I used to think in terms of getting by (I never thought in terms of...) which is kind of dumb but that is the way I was...as bad as things would get sometimes - I’d get a new picture and be over the moon."

She had managed to save some money over the years and hired a broker to help her invest it. But she lost it all in the stock market downturn of 2000:

"It was really a shame. It was stupid of me - you have to try to forgive yourself. It's my fault. You don’t do that - well its gone so I try not to dwell on it."

But it’s hard not to dwell on because she is currently without an apartment. She moved away from New York but came back. Tried a roommate and is now staying with a friend until she can find her own place.

In the meantime she’s paying 285 a month to store her things and can’t access a lot of her equipment and photographs - which keeps her from making the money she needs to move. She’s worried how long she can sustain this:

"I really didn’t stow away any of my nuts for the winter - I had them and then I lost it. I just think in terms of pictures and even today - its abysmal. I get a new one and I tape them up on the wall. [This is what I used to do] and then I get up about 5:00 - to use the bathroom - then I’d walk back and see it and try to be surprised....I still do that "ohhh...(It is still my love) the worst is I can’t work. I don’t have my space."

As we leave the café - she gives a tour of her old Greenwich Village haunts. She points out places that are still there and recalls the ones that are long gone. The streets conjur up people and stories.:

Until she finds a place and gets back to work Freedman says she tries to keep her living expenses as close to zero as possible. But she says she’d rather do without than have to live without all of life’s little luxuries:

"Sometimes I just don’t eat so I can eat what I like. If I am going to eat - I want it to be good. There are such a thing as lemon bars...how could you live without chocolate and a good sipping whiskey - you couldn’t you know. They are health foods - I said it and am proven right - you see? Always said it dark chocolate and good whiskey - see?"

Freedman says she works hard trying to be optimistic that things will soon turn around -in spite of the creditors that call -And being ineligible to receive social security because she worked "off the books" most of her life. She says something will change soon:

"I see myself getting to work and something great happening. I have to be discovered now. I am long overdue."

Jill Freedman is looking for a publisher for her next book her next book. -A compilation of her photographs of the city from the 60’s 70’s and 80’s. She thinks she’ll call it: "Where is New York?"

For WNYC, I’m Kathleen Horan

Jill Freedman's website

More from WNYC's poverty series