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Description
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I lived on and off with Nell and her daughter in the crime-ridden "projects". She couldn't pay her monthly rent of 59$ and was eventually evicted. Now she is homeless and walking the streets of New York.
I came to live with Nell Hall in Jersey City in 1974, when I moved in with her pregnant daughter, Eveleen. As a poster this picture became extremely popular among American feminists as the symbol of the worn-out welfare mother. I don’t remember if the baby was actually Eveleen’s. Nor did it matter in the bleak setting of poverty ridden projects, where the only pastime – apart from crime – is round-the-clock TV. It was really hard for me to pass the time there, so I had plenty left over to wait for the right facial expression which conveyed the hopelessness - before the heartening entrance of the stranger in their lives.
Nell Hall was soon evicted because she couldn’t pay her rent of 59 dollars a month. They became homeless and I lost touch with them. But I think about her and her daughter all the time when I drive past these now-condemned poorhouses on Highway 9, where kids from our slum apartments used to unload the backs of trucks with lightning speed when traffic backed up during rush hour. For the place is right next to where I warehouse my equipment and the posters with Nell. In the room next to mine the Arab terrorists made the bomb which blew up the WTC the first time……and according to the FBI they were close to also blow up all Nell Halls left over papers.
65 Dales Ave #1130, Jersey City, NJ, September 19th 1974
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