The Trace

These Neighborhood Groups Are Fighting to Rewrite Brownsville’s Legacy of Violence

Robert Gerhardt

Brownsville, a neighborhood on the east side of Brooklyn, New York, has endured decades of disinvestment. It also has one of the city’s worst gun violence rates and one of the largest concentrations of public housing in the city and the nation. 

But there’s much more to Brownsville than violence, crime and poverty. Residents and leaders are working to improve the quality of life in their community and combat the challenges that mar the neighborhood.

“Brownsville, I’ve found, is a place where people help people,” Robert Gerhardt said. 

Gerhardt captured the fullness of the tight-knit community in black-and-white photos for The Trace. One picture shows two men dapping. The caption reveals that one man, who’s seated and smiling broadly, was shot by a rival when he was 14 years old. Now he’s a program manager for an anti-gun violence initiative. 

Another photo shows women from the Nation of Islam handing out free meals. In one image, a crowd of children huddles as two tug at opposite sides of a car tire during a football competition.

Other pictures capture community members serving food, dancing, playing basketball, and going about their everyday lives.

Gerhardt adds context to each scene in a narrative that quotes Brownsville residents about the neighborhood’s challenges and the related response. 

“The narrative framing is where this piece’s editorial vision is strongest,” a judge said. “For me, this isn’t a story about gun violence, it’s about the people fighting gun violence. That distinction is everything, and the visual work reinforces it. The images center community groups, faith leaders, basketball tournaments, food programs, parades. The black-and-white film aesthetic elevates the work, gets intimate, and poetic.”

Read the Winning Work

These Neighborhood Groups Are Fighting to Rewrite Brownsville’s Legacy of Violence Oct. 17, 2025