Back when Biggie ruled Brooklyn, it was intense, it was gritty, and it was tough. Back in the day, saying you were from Brooklyn gave you instant street cred.
Today? Yeah... well, not so much. Because today's Brooklyn is overrun with boutiques shops, frozen yogurt spots, and hipsters.
But are you really curious to see just how much Brooklyn's changed over the years?
Then check out the following photos. They're guaranteed to blow your mind, as they were taken by photographer Kristy Chatelain in her photograph series, Brooklyn Changing.
Back when she moved to Greenpoint in 2006, Chatelain fell in love with the countless family-run, Polish storefronts.
In order to document her favorite Greenpoint spots, Chatelain started photographing them to "see how long they would last," before being overrun by new tenants and storefronts.
She meandered the city's streets with her Canon 5D, looking for buildings with exceptional collisions of light, color, and texture.
Then, slowly but surely, it started to happen. The places Chatelain loved began to close.
Chatelain snagged photographs whenever she noticed aspects of Greenpoint that underwent noticeable metamorphosis. Some changed overnight, while others were slowly changed over a period of a few years.
But Chatelain isn't mad about Greenpoint's transformation.
"I see it as all part of the cycle of change that is New York City," she was recently quoted as saying in WIRED.
"It's just sad that long time residents might be forced out in the process of gentrification, or basically have to watch their neighborhood become unrecognizable."
Chatelain no longer lives in Greenpoint, but her move hasn't ended her project. She still meanders the old neighborhood, documenting its seemingly inevitable change.
Now check out the full series and extent of Brooklyn Changing here, or take a look below at some of the before-and-after snapshots taken by Chatelain herself.
Check out 22,000 New Apartments Will Completely Change Brooklyn's Skyline by 2019.
[via WIRED & Brooklyn Changing]