Disco-Era Brooklyn: Photographer Dinanda Nooney’s Portraits of People in Their Bedrooms
Disco-era Brooklyn is perhaps nowhere captured more intimately than in Dinanda Nooney’s series of photographs documenting 150 homes throughout the borough. From late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s childhood home to the abode of celebrity motorcyclist Johnny Redd, many lives were documented by Nooney in the 16 months she spent visiting people in their houses throughout Brooklyn’s diverse neighborhoods…
Disco-era Brooklyn is perhaps nowhere captured more intimately than in Dinanda Nooney’s series of photographs documenting 150 homes throughout the borough.
From late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat’s childhood home to the abode of celebrity motorcyclist Johnny Redd, many lives were documented by Nooney in the 16 months she spent visiting people in their houses throughout Brooklyn’s diverse neighborhoods in the late 1970s.
The late photographer’s full collection of Brooklyn photographs are available online via the New York Public Library’s archives. The late 1970s live on in her photos, the nuanced energy of the decade alive in her casually posed subjects, their decorations and outfits representative of a time now long gone.
Many publications have focused on her living rooms and kitchens but omit her portraits of the bedroom, one of the home’s most intimate chambers. (She also documented at least one bathroom.)
The photos are very expressive of the people who inhabit them, and this is especially the case with portraits taken in the bedroom. Many of the bedroom portraits show children, which makes sense, since the bedroom is their “own” room and the other rooms belong to the parents or the whole family.
Nooney happened on the subject of Brooklynites in their homes almost by accident, after working on the 1972 McGovern campaign in the borough, as Brownstoner detailed in the first of our multi-part series on the photographer and her work.
This is part of a series on the late photographer Dinanda Nooney, whose full collection of Brooklyn photographs are available online via the New York Public Library’s archives.
[Photos: Dinanda Nooney]
Related Stories
“She Was in Charge of Brooklyn”: Dinanda Nooney’s Daughter on Brooklyn and Her Mother
Photos: Meryl Meisler’s 1980s Bushwick — Youth and Freedom Despite the Blight
Lutz Dille’s Photos of Coney Island in 1962
Email tips@brownstoner.com with further comments, questions or tips. Follow Brownstoner on Twitter and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.
[sc:daily-email-signup ]
What's Your Take? Leave a Comment