'Shay Rutkowski's "Church of the Nativity" excavates the rubble left behind by rapid gentrification. Taking a demolished parish church, located on Second Avenue and Second Street in New York's East  Village as their subject, Rutkowski uncovers the beauty of vacant lots through various printmaking processes and acrylic painting. As neighborhoods tear down the past, this show investigates how we remember absent communities, architecture, and urban space. 

Rutkowski has photographed the demolished and its surround over the past couple of years, including the neighboring Middle Collegiate Church that burned down from a six alarm fire. One of these sessions led to a chance encounter with David Marmolejo, an East Village native who grew up down the street from the Church of the Nativity and attended Sunday mass there as a child in the 80s. 

Text excerpts are sourced from an interview with Marmolejo, who speaks to the role the church played for his neighborhood. Marmolejo comes from a family of Mexican immigrants, composing a large demographic alongside Puerto rican, Black, and Dominican communities in the East Village. After living in Queens and the Bronx as a young adult, Marmolejo returned to his childhood home on Third Street and has lived there since.'

-Jonah Belsky