John Penley's images in Series II primarily document gentrification and protests relating to housing rights in New York's Lower East Side during the 1990s. However, the photographic materials in the collection (mainly prints and negatives, though there are also slides, contact sheets, and images on CD) date from the 1980s to 2013 and also showcase a variety of other social issues and feature New York City as a whole, as well as other national and international locales.
Penley's photographs provide documentation of protests by homeless and squatters' rights activists, as well as gay rights and AIDS activists (including the organization ACT UP) and demonstrations against police brutality, the death penalty, and racial hate crimes and discrimination. Many protests Penley documented take place at political conventions and/or are against specific politicians. There are also images of medical marijuana rallies, cultural celebrations, and New York City landmarks and nightlife. Well-known individuals featured in the collection include Rudy Guiliani, Ed Koch, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Arlo Guthrie, Matt Dillon, Martin Sheen, Philip Berrigan, Timothy Leary, and Ramsey Clark, as well as Lower East Side artist and writer residents such as Allen Ginsburg, William Burroughs, Keith Haring, and Karen Finley.
Penley documented his travels to Mexico and Nicaragua (the latter during the conflict between the Sandinista government and the "contras") during the 1980s. Two CDs contain photographs from Penley's March 2013 protest in front of New York University's Bobst Library, in which Penley attempted to persuade NYU to provide housing for the East Village's homeless and low-income residents. The series also includes three unlabeled mini-DV cassette tapes.
Researchers should note that additional images from the same shoots and events found in the in the Tamiment Library's 2009 flickr exhibit of John Penley's images may also be found in shoots with similar captions and dates throughout the rest of the series.
Researchers should also note that not all of the series is described. Some entire boxes of negatives or photographs are undescribed (which is noted in the container list), and occasionally a few individual shoots or events in a box are undescribed, even if the majority of the box has been described.
