18
HAPPENINGS
Lockdown Life
by CRAIG HUBERT
Josh Katz realized he needed to figure out how to get
on his roof. It was March 2020, the beginning days of
lockdown measures due to the spread of the coronavirus,
and Katz, a photographer, had already been
quarantined for a week in his Bushwick apartment after
his roommate got sick. Like everybody, he was feeling
restless. Maybe a little lonely. How long the lockdown
would last was unclear. Eventually, he was able to
jimmy the lock, giving him and his neighbors access to
a much-needed outdoor space.
When they got up on the roof, Katz was surprised at
what he found. “It was this very serendipitous day,”
he says. “All around us everyone was doing the same
thing. Immediately, you could see that something
beautiful was happening.” With time on his hands and
itching to start a project, he grabbed his camera and
started taking photos, circling a path of 17 interconnected
roofs and meeting his neighbors for the first
time.
“On the Roof: New York in Quarantine,” published in
October by Thames & Hudson, is the result: a heartwarming
book about resourcefulness, community, and
connection. Katz captures people dancing, practicing
instruments, playing with their kids, walking their dog.
More than a few climb up on their roof to enjoy a drink.
Neighbors start to meet one another. Babies wave
through apartment windows. Relationships seem to
emerge and later fizzle out.
Katz began posting the photos on Instagram, often
with poetic, diaristic captions (some of which are
reproduced in the book). “Normally, you put out a
project after it's made and people react,” he says. “This
was evolving as it was coming out, and it was always
really interesting to see how neighbors responded.” He
had dozens of conversations with neighbors, he said,
explaining the project to them and listening to any concerns
they might have about him taking their picture.
He even posted a code of ethics on Instagram after a
conversation with some neighbors about consent and
photography. “I wanted people to understand this was
a community project,” he says. “People were really
understanding of it and down for it.”
Now that the city is out of strict lockdown, the book
feels like a time capsule, a document of a brief, strange
moment in time unlikely to be repeated. But for Katz,
the effects of the project continue to reverberate
through his daily life. Before the project began, “I
pretty much didn't know a single neighbor on the
block,” he says. “Now I can't leave the house without
bumping into multiple people. It’s the best thing ever.”
Photo by Josh Katz. Copyright © 2021.