It is no secret that real-estate development and gentrification have enveloped the formerly dilapidated streets of the East Village and the Lower East Side. Once home to immigrants and working-class families, and offering affordable havens to struggling artists and wayward creatives, these neighborhoods have given way to high-end galleries, boutiques, and restaurants. With renovation, old lofts are now luxury apartments. In 2015, in a melancholic ode to the past, the photographer Adam Friedberg walked the East Side streets, documenting the remaining one-story buildings and catching the character that once was. He used an analog large-format camera, and photographed during the early morning. The images are moody relics of a humbler time. —E.C.