At the age of 10, Joe Conzo Jr. found himself at the center of a community in flux. Born in 1963 in the South Bronx, Conzo grew up in an area devastated and destabilized by the construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway, designed by Robert Moses. Arson was a daily occurrence and crime was at an all-time high. Simultaneously, the nascent hip-hop movement was growing at gatherings and on street corners, Tito Puente’s popular salsa dancing had earned the Bronx the moniker “El Condado de la Salsa” (the Borough of Salsa), and Conzo’s own grandmother Evelina López Antonetty (dubbed the Hell Lady of the Bronx) was successfully advocating for change within the Puerto Rican community. From Grandmaster Caz and the Cold Crush Brothers at Club Negril to volunteers clearing rubble from an empty lot, Conzo, camera in hand, was there to capture it in black and white. —Paulina Prosnitz