Nicholas Pinto

Mr Carroll Hebert is the owner of Smith Tires. He has owned the tire shop in New Orleans for over forty years. The following is a review of Smith Tires as described on Yelp. If you're driving eastbound on St. Claude Avenue towards Elysian Fields Avenue, don't blink your eyes as you'll drive right by. Smith's Tire Service is a perfect example of why you should not judge a book by it's cover. This longstanding business on the corner of Frenchmen & St. Claude looks extremely "weathered" from the outside. But Mr. Carroll Hebert is a one man dynamo that takes pride in his work. He specializes in vulcanized rubber tire repairs. If you're looking for a repair using a tire plug, don't stop here because he does not believe in them nor will he use them. Besides, most tire warranties will be voided if a tire is repaired using a plug instead of a patch. Don't let Carroll's hurried nature intimidate you, as he's moving at the speed of a cartoonish Tasmanian Devil. That's because he primarily deals with large dump truck styled tires for several large local companies, and he's always working on 10-20 tires at a time. However, he gladly repairs passenger car and truck tires on a drive-up basis. His shop is a no frills business as there is no waiting room, restrooms or vending machine. However, what you get is a first class repair that he will stand behind. He's as good as they get and a vulcanized rubber patch repair will only set you back 15-20 minutes. Just make sure you bring cash as he does not take credit cards. Nor is he open on Saturdays or Sundays. So if you happen to see a nail or screw in your tire, give him a try.

"Hello, I have struggled with depression on and off for about 20 years. It is situational depression due to loss of employment and loss of my Mother and Father. Still grieving for them both after 9 years and 14 years respectively. The economy here does not help in finding work which just makes the depression worse and worse. I also live alone which doesn't help and I tend to compare myself to my friends and family that have excellent work or have been able to retire, which I don't think I can do. I am a 63 year old woman and feel like a total and complete failure." -Nancy

Singer/Songwriter Tom Waits said in an interview once that while talking to men on Skid Row, he learned that every one of them ended up there in some way or another because of a woman. He wrote about this in his song Tom Traubert’s Blues (Waltzing Matilda). Wasted and wounded, it ain't what the moon did I've got what I paid for now See ya tomorrow, hey Frank, can I borrow A couple of bucks from you, to go Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda, you'll go waltzing Matilda with me I'm an innocent victim of a blinded alley And I'm tired of all these soldiers here No one speaks English, and everything's broken And my Stacys are soaking wet. -­‐Waits What if Waits’ woman (Matilda) weren’t necessarily a woman, but in fact a metaphor for drug abuse? In the County of Los Angeles more than 58,000 women and men are homeless. Skid Row has the highest concentration of homeless in the US, between 5,000 to 8,000 people living without permanent shelter in a 50 square-­‐block area. The 2013 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority reports that at least 30% of homeless individuals live with severe and persistent mental illness.... jails have replaced mental hospitals, and the criminalization of poverty and mental illness runs rampant. Most Skid Row residents commit crimes related to their homelessness, and are chemically dependent to cope with their daily traumas. The drug addiction, the mental illness, and the disease is all rampant on Skid Row. During the Ronald Reagan Administration, mental hospitals were shut down and subsequently their patients were released. The idea was that with the advent of antidepressants, antipsychotics, and other medicines of the like– paired with social security and disability assistance– the sick and disadvantaged would be able to go forth and take care of themselves. The result was an influx of sick and mentally ill homeless individuals. This continues today. Considering all this, Sidewalks and Side Effects is attempting to ask which is the cause of the situation: is it the mental illness and addictions that led these people to the streets, or is it the streets that caused the mental illness and addictions? In the end, does it matter?

There are places that I am pulled to shoot more than others. On the Southwest side of Chicago, stands massive Silos, that stick off of the interstate like a monument to a forgotten world. These buildings I learned was the center of a community, they called it the Sky Factory. The day I learned about the Sky Factory, I wandered back into the grounds just to take some images of the landscape and area. What I found was much more. I noticed some flower pots and a makeshift entrance to one of the buildings. It was clearly someones home. I began to semi loudly say “hello, hello”, not wanting to walk in the open door without an invitation even if it was an abandoned silo. I was soon greeted and brought into a small community that was squatting. I later would come to find that these young adults were there by choice, "learning survival skills for the end of the world". Led by Gone. Who later became the main subject in my series Gone Tomorrow. I first met Gone(who now goes by the name of Kara) several years ago. Gone was the mind and the driving force behind this community. It was obvious how they all looked to Gone for guidance, almost like a hero. He was a kind of hero. He actually built a boat and ran power across the river to the Silos which they called the Sky Factory. Why people gravitated towards Kara, myself included, was that she believed in what she was creating there, which was a place, “off the grid” in which a community could live peacefully and be self sustainable. The following images are from my time at the Sky Factory.

Images taken during my time as an after school photography teacher at Morrill Elementary school in Chicago, Il.