We started re-photographing the locations of all the mom-and-pop stores which appeared in our book, Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, after a decade had passed.

The original photos in our Store Front book were taken between 2001 and 2007.

We felt this was a sufficient amount of time to really bring into focus the commercial changes and resulting loss of character and decreased sense of community the neighbourhoods were experiencing.

The purpose of the photos in the before and after project is to clearly spell out and provide documentation of not only what storefronts have been lost but also what is often lacking in what replaces them.

Until you place them side-by-side and really look at the two photos, you cannot get the true sense of loss.

Max Fish on the Lower East Side closed in July 2013 after a series of rent increases. The rent rose from $2,000 a month when it first opened in 1989 to $16,000 a month when it closed 24 years later. It was due to increase again.

The trend we noticed very early on while photographing the original stores was that if the shop-owner did not own the entire building, their business was already in jeopardy.

The shop-owners frequently acknowledged that they were at the mercy of their landlords and the ever-increasing rents they charged.

If the location was too small a footprint or the locale was deemed undesirable by a chain-type store, the space often remained vacant, sometimes for years.

We are happy to see that in certain instances, a small business is replaced by a new small business, but it doesn’t seem to happen as often as we would like. A good example of this is E Kurowycky & Sons Meat Market in the East Village, which closed in 2007 to be replaced by Kim’s Video.

Big rent hikes meant that many small businesses closed to be replaced by chain stores or banks, which could afford the higher rent.

The East Village’s Mars Bar closed in 2011. It was replaced by a luxury condo building with a soon-to-be-opened TD Bank on the ground floor.

We hope that viewers of these photos will frequent small independent businesses so that more shops will be able to survive.

Lenox Lounge in Harlem closed on 31 December 2012 after a lease dispute.

The original 2nd Avenue Deli in the East Village closed in 2006 after the rent was increased from $24,000 a month to $33,000.

CBGB's in the East Village closed in 2006 after it lost its lease.

Ralph’s Discount City in TriBeCa was forced to close in 2007 when the building began plans for conversion into a luxury condo.

Martin's Bar was replaced by a Subway.

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