Natasha. She spoke of being raped as calmly as if relating a book she read or a film she'd watched. When I first encountered her she was sitting on the sidewalk clipping her toe nails. She described the street as sad, lonely and too loud. "The street it's hard and it's tough and you're hungry. You're hot or you're cold, you completely forget about a shower. When the church people come out that means so much to us when people help. Right now I have shoes. Some have shoes completely torn out at the bottom."

Natasha

Inside the Tioga Station

A man was yelling somewhere above the street and tossing objects below. One of them hit an older woman standing across the street, perhaps waiting for a bus. She is lying on the pavement as the woman in the foreground is trying to get help.

Amanda She's been out on the street a year and a half.

The woman seated with the child told me she hopes to move. Her granddaughter is autistic, she said.

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The woman on the right is giving directions to the woman beside her who is there searching for a brother who has been missing for two weeks.

View from the El

Amber. At 23 years old she's been out on the street for five years now. "I want to make this street mine," she said. She does not believe she will ever leave these streets.

Fred and Lauren. They were living in a car for a bit. When the car broke down she stopped going to work. She contemplates going to counseling for anger management over the death of her brother killed by a policeman. Fred ended up relapsing when they ended up here on Kensington Ave.

Karla. "I lost everything behind drug addiction and mental health." Her husband passed away just a few months ago and she said that now "I have no one to turn to." She foresees getting 7 - 10 blankets for the wintertime months. The street has changed drastically she states. Karla's dream: "My dream is to make it into heaven."

Alexis. She has been out on the street three years. "I regret coming to this street, the drugs every day of my life." She survives by prostituting. A cop asked her just the other day if she wanted to get help. "It's hard especially when it gets cold out here. In the summertime it's like nothing. It's real hard in the winter."

Sarah has in her hand a king can of malt liquor. She remarked "96% of us girls out here were raped or molested as children." She stated that these streets "are paved with dirty needles...what woman would want to live out here?"

There was a fire on this block on this particular morning. Someone was reportedly trapped in a second floor apartment. The man, in his 30's, died.

In plain sight. Walking the street this becomes a very familiar scene.

Shopping carts and bedding are prevalent on these sidewalks.

Another corner where people congregate. Almost everyone here is young. Females in their late teens to mid 20's.

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Theresa speaking with people on the streets. She is an evangelist and community activist who hopes that one day she will have a church of her own. She says the neighbors are crying for their community and calls Kensington Avenue a nuisance. She blames the City for part of the problem in allowing organizations to give out needles and tie ups...which draw people here and contribute to the problem.

73 years old.

Sunny. "The street is what you make it."

Sunny. Amanda in the background in the cut up jeans.

Nicole with Magic. She states she was threatened as a child that she would be killed if she ever told of the abuse. So, she found a way to tell - she relayed the stories and the pain to her stuffed animals. She carries Magic around with her.