Downtown Story began with a simple realization:
I missed downtown Manhattan.
After returning from an artist residency in 2025, I hadn't been downtown in more than a month. When I finally stepped off the ferry and walked those streets again, I felt an unexpected excitement. It felt like returning to a place I knew intimately. Something about downtown has always drawn me in. Its streets carry layers of history, while the skyline keeps reinventing itself. Glass towers rise above cobblestones; new buildings stand beside traces of New York's past.
Although Downtown Story began with the Broken Series, my connection to architecture started much earlier. As a child in Bucharest, my father introduced me to drawing through architecture. He had always dreamed of becoming an architect, and he taught me about proportion, perspective, and the geometry of buildings. Together, we looked at the city's facades and streets, and what began as drawing lessons gradually became lessons in observation. I learned that buildings are more than structures; they hold personal memories, collective histories, and the stories of the people who move through them.
Years later, after moving to New York, I turned to photography to explore the city. At first, I was drawn to architecture for its forms, rhythms, and geometry. Over time, my interest expanded beyond structure alone. I became interested in how places shape our sense of identity and belonging, especially in a constantly changing city. These early photographs and studies eventually led to the Broken series and, within it, Downtown Story.
In this work, the city I photographed becomes inseparable from the city I remembered—a place continually rebuilt and continually rediscovered. What began as an exploration of architecture and geometry evolved into a broader reflection on memory, migration, change, and the experience of finding one's place within an ever-evolving city.
Studio Note #3 by Roxana Gheorghe
