Though these photos span thirty years of New York City bustle and bluster, “they are not pictures of the unfamiliar,” says photographer Carrie Boretz. “People’s routines, behavior, habits stay the same. People absorbed with one another, with aloofness, with intimacy. A city filled with contradictions.”

Taken in the 1970s, ‘80s, and ‘90s, the photos depict NYC “when it was grittier, dirtier, and scarier than it is now. Before much of the graffiti was scrubbed away and the garbage-strewn playgrounds were raked and reborn as sprouting flower gardens,“ she says.

After dusting off boxes and boxes of negatives, Boretz is ready to release these images in a photobook called Street. It’ll vividly document moments of tenderness, strangeness, and humor on the streets of NYC. Support the project here.