American Summer '24

Situated on the northern flanks of the Catskill Mountains, Delaware County is one of the poorer counties in New York State. Very much a backwater in recent decades with a sense of being ignored or cut out by the downstate urban population, it has seen a surge of wealthier new residents and second-home owners from the New York City area in the years since the COVID pandemic. Adding to the mix, there are significant pockets of Mexican and Hassidic Jewish residents living alongside the largely white historical demographic.  Nevertheless, the county retains a strong sense of tradition, and the Delaware County Fair in the town of Walton has been running in a largely unchanged format for 134 years. In this series, taken at the fairgrounds and around the smaller villages of Bovina, Margaretville, Fleischmanns, and Arkville, I try to capture the sometimes strange mix of classic Americana, rural pride, economic decline, and gradual urban infiltration.