Latin American, Vietnamese, Thai, and Korean immigrants, Latinx and Asian Americans all live in Linda Vista, my Central San Diego neighborhood. Like many California neighborhoods, Linda Vista is in the throes of gentrification, or, at the very least, is under perpetual construction. Barrack-like apartments that have fanned out to face Linda Vista Community Park since the 1940s stand empty. Ironically the buildings will be razed so the city can build affordable senior housing. April 15, 2022, the complex was fenced off, marked for demolition. Behind the fence, empty apartment windows yawn open, yards bear the traces of the residents who once lived here. This series offers a double documentation: It documents my own first attempts at documentary photography. When I began “Demolition City,” I did not know what I was doing; I did know that I had to capture “act one” of the process I was witnessing. The first and second set of images I’ve completed reveal the contrast between a waning old and a waxing new. The photographs speak to neo ghost towns in the middle of "high density" zones of development.
On May 6, 2022, the second act of this grotesque repeat performance began. The cranes moved in—as my mother calls them "Weapons of Mass Construction"—although in this case, they still signal destruction. Ulric Street is slated to be blocked off until May 20, 2022. A thick, sticky, white paint coats all of the condemned buildings. I took seventeen photos included in the second segment of “Demolition City.” Some of the images I took by peering over the top of the padlocked entrance to the fenced-off area. As of May 16, 2022, the third act of this performance has not begun; but, I will continue to document my neighborhood’s transformation.