Roach Motel

16x20 inch Black & White print on Epson Art Cotton Smooth 250 gram paper. From the NYC Village Halloween Parade, 1982–86.

Shot from a second-story apartment overlooking West 10th Street, this black-and-white 35mm frame captures a biting piece of social satire from the NYC Village Halloween Parade between 1982 and 1986. A participant navigates the asphalt in a boxy, do-it-yourself "Roach Motel" costume, holding hand-lettered signs that mock the mid-eighties housing crisis with phrases like "Sublet Available" and "Going Co-op." The photographer utilized a 135mm lens to pull the subject in close from their elevated vantage point, while a powerful professional strobe light illuminated the street below, freezing the marcher mid-stride. This black-and-white perspective highlights the clever DIY ingenuity and local political humor that defined the Greenwich Village festivities during this era.