When Gail Victoria Braddock Quagliata noticed that the bodegas she used to pass on her daily walks seemed to be getting fewer and fewer, she got out her camera to document a disappearing landscape. She began shooting in 2009 as a fine-arts project for her master's thesis in photography.
But in December, she stepped up her efforts when she noticed some of the stores closing shop—mainly in Manhattan—were being replaced by national chains, including pharmacies, convenience stores and coffee shops. She moved to capture the city's bodegas before more became another New York historical footnote.
"I really never considered myself an activist or the kind of person who would dig my heels in and say these mom and pops should stick around," said Ms. Quagliata, who lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. "But I had to become a kind of angry person who said I don't want this in my neighborhood."
Called "Every Bodega in Manhattan," her photo project, some of which is online, now includes more than 4,000 stores. It is a visual record, if not a virtual scrapbook, of the idiosyncratic mom and pop stores and the neighborhoods they serve.
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