The Flower District.

It’s a jungle out there.

Packaged for the masses, the gardening trades and civilians alike descend upon the Flower District to have their green needs met in what may be the purest form of IRL eco-socialization.

The photographs are a meditation on the detritus of the urban garden that considers the deforestation created by retail plant trades. I stalk the streets of the Flower District with underplayed skill knowing it will not reward me with the experience of being in nature - a limitation known to many who live in distant urban centers. But I’ll take it.

Living in a city, the ritual of gardening is curtailed to my windowsill, and I’m one of the lucky ones. Many don’t even have a sunny ledge upon which to nourish a plant. This is what the trade relies on. The human need for nature is expressed within the micro purchase of buying a leafy green.

The district wraps us in the dirt’s best efforts. Even in the middle of a busted strip of Manhattan it is possible to be awash in oxytocin. Strip this experience away and what is left? Only the district itself. Within these few bedraggled streets of Manhattan one can feel the developers circling. Gentrification seems nigh. However, even in the context of a concrete jungle, the flower district emits gritty, abundant  joy.