In 1975, I immersed myself in the lives of “the Common Crowd,” a group of marginalized people bound together by shared misfortune, and often desperate circumstances, that spent their days hanging out together on the Boston Common in the shadow of the gleaming state capitol building on Beacon Hill. They sought camaraderie and a sense of belonging and safety in numbers, establishing a family-like dynamic often contrasted with the dysfunctional homes many had created or escaped. One day I had a chance encounter and conversation in the park that soon led to new-found friends and one life-long friendship.

I took more than a thousand portraits of the Common Crowd during a six-month period. During summer months sitting on the grass, I recorded over thirty-five hours of audio interviews with my colleague Aria Edry. As a documentary photographer, I often include quotes from my subjects to give them a voice, while my viewpoint is presented in the images. I listened to stories told by addicts, abuse victims, alcoholics, bikers, pimps, hustlers, gamblers, runaways, and formerly incarcerated people. I wanted to understand how the members of this informal group came to depend on each other, what brought them together in this unlikely place, and why I was so drawn to their plight. When the city cleared the park for the Bicentennial celebrations, the Common Crowd was forced to scatter and was kept away by a police crackdown. These photographs, interviews, and recollections are all that remain from that tenuous community.

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