News & Blogs A look into the lives of Junkies - THE NINTH FLOOR

[wizehop]

the ninth floor by jessica dimmock
By waldito · 1 year ago · 40 images · 277,845 views · View attachment 19034
In the 1970s, New York artist Joe Smith rented an apartment overlooking Fifth Avenue. In the years that followed, the rooms became a black hole of drug addiction, hopelessness, and squandered dreams. A chance meeting with one of the residents drew photojournalist Jessica Dimmock to the apartment, where she embarked on an almost three-year journey into the lives of those living there. Some estimates place numbers of heroin addicts in the United States at 600,000, with growing numbers of teenagers and young adults entering their ranks. Focusing on three individuals, Dimmock watches and listens as the young people on the ninth floor fall into despair, then reflect on their choices and yearn for more. We are left with the reality of the drug's power, and the question: What does it take to kick the habit? Published: December 11, 2007

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Jesse stands in the room she shares with her boyfriend, Mike.

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Joey calls to someone knocking at his bedroom door before letting them in.

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Charlie, a drug dealer who slept in a hidden space behind a moveable bookcase in Joe's apartment, counts money from a sale.

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Rachel stays in the apartment after the arrest of her boyfriend, Lucky.

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Jesse injects Old Man Joe. Joe cannot shoot himself up, and therefore is dependent on the residents to both inject him and supply him with drugs.

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Natasha struggles to find a vein for more than 45 minutes while her arms bleed from repeated attempts.

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Jesse walks back and forth in her bedroom prior to getting high. Unbeknown to their upwardly mobile neighbors, a rotating collection of drug users, including Jesse, lived for years on the ninth floor of a rent-controlled apartment building not far from the famous Flatiron building, a prime piece of New York City real estate.

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Joe no longer holds a bedroom in his apartment, opting to stay on the couch of the living room and rent out all available space in exchange for drugs, beer or small amounts of money.

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The living room of Joe Smith's apartment, like the rest of the household, is stripped of all objects that could be sold to obtain money for drugs.

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Joe, 27, first used drugs at the age of 13. His veins are severely scarred and closed as a result of years of needle use. He struggles daily to find places on his body where he can still shoot up.

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Mike, lead singer for the Murder Junkies, shows scars from when he cuts himself on stage during performances.

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Jesse and Mike share a rare moment of intimacy in their bedroom. The daily struggle to obtain money for drugs puts a considerable amount of strain on their relationship.

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Upon being evicted from their apartment, Jesse and her boyfriend Mike sleep in Union Square park during the summer of 2005.

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Jesse wanders the streets of New York City after being evicted from the apartment.

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Jesse, 32, has been heavily addicted to heroin for more than ten years. After seven-months in jail in 2006 she has moved to her parents home along the Hudson River and attempts sobriety although she continues to relapse.

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Jesse's mother tries to comfort her as Jesse cries from frustration and desperation during a painful detox from heroin and crack. Although Jesse is in a rehab program, she does not yet feel the effects of her medication and must fight the temptation to go into the city to score drugs.

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Jesse, who is attempting sobriety, meets up with a fellow Narcotics Anonymous member in the park while skipping a meeting.

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Jesse is released from a seven-month sentence in jail. Sober and relieved to be out, Jesse is taken to an organic farm on the way to her mother's house where she will go to live in an attempt to stay sober.

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Jesse and Mike rent a hotel room for three hours in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Although Jesse has been attempting sobriety by living with her parents in upstate New York, she continues to relapse by coming to Manhattan and using drugs.

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Jesse and Mike rent a hotel room for three hours in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Although Jesse has been attempting sobriety by living with her parents in upstate New York, she continues to relapse by coming to Manhattan and using.

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Rachel screams at Dionn inside the room they share in the Bronx. The small space that they occupy and the pressures of expecting a baby, being unemployed and trying to stay off heroin have made the couple extremely volatile.

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Dionn expresses anger at an exhausted and pregnant Rachel during the summer of 2006.

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Rachel punches Dionn during a fight in their Washington Heights apartment. The couple was evicted several weeks later after beating up a roommate to the point of hospitalization.

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Dionn after a fight with his girlfriend Rachel.

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Rachel and Dionn have sex in their Washington Heights apartment in January of 2006.

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Rachel clings to a beer while she and Dionn have sex in their Washington Heights apartment.

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Rachel lies on the bed of the Washington Heights apartment she shares with Dionn.

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Rachel lies in the apartment she shares with her boyfriend, Dionn, several weeks before their baby is due.

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Dionn comforts his daughter, Matilda, in the hospital where she has stayed for the first five weeks of her life.

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Jesse struggles to get to the hospital after feeling weak and ill for several weeks.

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Jesse, in the hospital for an abscess on her kidney, continues to use heroin.

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Jesse shoots up during a several week stay in the hospital for an internal abscess.

 

[Matt Derrick]

damn that's crazy man. it's easy to forget that this kind of stuff is happening all around the world all the time.

 

[iamwhatiam]

wow those pictures bring back plenty memories of my own. and what an intimate photo shoot of their lives!

 

[kaichulita]

Wow, the photographer does a good job of telling their story. .. very real and sad. Thanks for the share

 

[Odin]

I like to think of myself as a highly functioning alcoholic... you know like that ... @^&@%# in congress... boner or whatever his name is... hah

...

I can't help but think... damn I'm lucky I have not gotten into that.
And I can't help but think... how can you give someone like that strength to overcome?
@iamwhatiam you said it brother... this is a very intimate look at the life.

 

[pigpen]

It's amazing how many kids die their second or third time doing dope and how many people stay on that shit for decades. luck of the draw I suppose...oh wow that was an awful and unintended pun...

 

[Deleted member 2626]

pigpen I figure they are getting poisoned or dosing wrong. I've never shot heroin though have been offered and declined. I've snorted it a couple of times and the next day sucks typically. I can see how people get hooked on the blackness of the feel. I think cocaine is way more addicting though. But nasty shit to see these photos. Them bleeding then wandering around is fucked up. Spread spread spread

 

[iamwhatiam]

pigpen I figure they are getting poisoned or dosing wrong. I've never shot heroin though have been offered and declined. I've snorted it a couple of times and the next day sucks typically. I can see how people get hooked on the blackness of the feel. I think cocaine is way more addicting though. But nasty shit to see these photos. Them bleeding then wandering around is fucked up. Spread spread spread

yea, it's hard for me to imagine how someone could overdose on heroin - at least the black tar. it's pretty easy to dose out the right amount with that. although my ex almost died from someone giving him a "hot shot", which is where you intentionally try to overdose someone. Once you inject heroin, it tends to hit you within a few seconds...so it just seems hard to me that you could overdose on it if you shoot it slowly....and wait.
But when you shoot cocaine, for instance, it takes a little while longer to hit you. That's why you should always test a minute amount first to see the strength of it before doing a bigger shot. I knew a guy once I sold some strong stuff to once who didn't take that advice, and the next time I saw him - he was laughing about how he o.d.'d and woke up in the hospital. It was really strange to me how he was laughing about it like it was nothing. pretty sad

 

[Preacher]

it's hard for me to imagine how someone could overdose on heroin

Not that hard. I used to work in an ER. Sometimes it was because it wasn't cut down as much as what they were used to. Sometimes it was cut down with something like scopalamine. Oh, that was a fun night at Frankford Hospital. Mostly it was just stupidity.

Too many shoot up by themselves and when you pass out, your lungs just gradually stop working, which causes your heart to stop. And many times those that are with others? The last thing the other junkies want is involvement with 'authority figures'. So they just take off. At least some of the times some of them had the decency to dump on OD on our ambulance ramp.

I didn't really get into it with them. I just know that they weren't happy after we hit them with the narcan and they started breathing again. Instead of "Hey! I almost died!" they got all pissed off that we ruined their high and they couldn't get high for a couple of days.

 

[iamwhatiam]

Not that hard. I used to work in an ER. Sometimes it was because it wasn't cut down as much as what they were used to. Sometimes it was cut down with something like scopalamine. Oh, that was a fun night at Frankford Hospital. Mostly it was just stupidity.

Too many shoot up by themselves and when you pass out, your lungs just gradually stop working, which causes your heart to stop. And many times those that are with others? The last thing the other junkies want is involvement with 'authority figures'. So they just take off. At least some of the times some of them had the decency to dump on OD on our ambulance ramp.

I didn't really get into it with them. I just know that they weren't happy after we hit them with the narcan and they started breathing again. Instead of "Hey! I almost died!" they got all pissed off that we ruined their high and they couldn't get high for a couple of days.

was the scopolamine - was that used in china white or black tar heroin?

 

[Preacher]

I don't know. I just know that one night we got slammed with overdoses and that is what the cops were saying it was cut with. We had everything from typical 'not breathing/blue lips' to dead. We had people restrained, lined up on the floor. We had to declare an emergency at the hospital. Only time in the year and half that I worked there that we did that.

Edit: Thinking more about it, I had thought that maybe someone had said something about allergy capsules. But googling it, it seems to only really be used for motion sickness. This was back in 93ish, so I'm straining my brain here,

 

[Hillbilly Castro]

Jesus fuck that was a real photo set. Anytime I hear of my friends fucking around with heroin, I'm showing them this shit.

 

[Kal]

Yikes!!!!!!!! That is one thing I never got into. Some of my friends did and are now stuck with health problems or are in jail, or dead.

 

[eskimo]

Fuck heroin

 

[shabti]

murder junkies? wasn't that gg allis's band?
I'm in NA. I don't get head from newcomers in the park though. Life is *significantly* more awesome clean. I picked up my one year medallion on March the 7th. This is so fucking sad to remember, through the eyes of other people.