The Lucy Story

This is a story of Lucy, an 83 year old  Puerto Rican woman who has diabetes living in the NYC Projects on the Lower East Side.  It is also a story about her daughter  Esther who is her caretaker, works a full time job and lives with her.  It’s a story about poverty, social class system and demographics.   Lucy came to America in 1946, she worked in a factory and a movie theater on Clinton Street.  Later, she became a community worker and helped inner city youths.  She also helped many people from the Caribbean who came to NYC with finding jobs and housing.  Lucy married a man of Russian Jewish decent from the Lower East Side who was abusive to her and fathered  three of her four children.

Esther’s siblings who also live in New York, all struggle with health and mental disease.   Esther recalls canned soda, fatty processed foods being part of the daily diet for her and her siblings when they were children.  Lucy was diagnosed with diabetes in her early 30s,  a disease that mostly effects the poor in America. This is not just a disease of neglect and excess, but also a disease of the forgotten.

Lucy lives in a very small apartment, which she only leaves for doctors appointments.  She takes 30 pills a day and passes her days watching  old TV shows…

Yelena Futeran/S4C New York City