Coney Island Housing Projects
Brooklyn, New York, 2005 - 2021
Coney Island Housing Projects is a long-term photographic study of the public-housing complexes on the west side of the Coney Island peninsula and the landscape that surrounds them. Made between 2005 and 2021, the series examines a built environment shaped by decades of disinvestment, coastal vulnerability, and policies that have concentrated poverty and racial inequality within this corner of New York City. The photographs portray a neighborhood whose physical conditions—aging towers, deteriorating infrastructure, exposed coastlines, and vacant lots—are inseparable from the structural racialization that has defined the area’s history.
Hamboussi’s connection to Coney Island is not observational alone. During these years, he worked for the New York City Housing Authority as an art instructor in every community center in Coney Island’s west-side developments. Through this work he formed lasting relationships with residents, especially children and teenagers aged six to eighteen. These relationships shaped the project from within, giving him access to daily life, personal histories, and the emotional texture of the community.
The photographs include portraits of residents, street-level views of the housing complexes, and scenes that reveal the tension between public housing and the surrounding environment. The series also documents the profound impact of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, when flooding and infrastructure collapse exposed the vulnerability of these developments and the unequal burden placed on their residents. Hamboussi captured both the immediate aftermath and the slow, uneven recovery that followed.
Across hundreds of images, Coney Island Housing Projects presents a neighborhood at the intersection of social crisis, environmental risk, and community resilience. The project reflects not only the material realities of public housing but also the lives, relationships, and expressions of those who inhabit it. Through this sustained engagement, Hamboussi offers a portrait of Coney Island that is intimate, complex, and rooted in the everyday experience of its residents.