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Bed-Stuy Squatters
Profiled In Sad Video


October 10, 2014 | Marina Galperina

“She used to be famous before she started doing the crizzle,” Bucket says about Bailey, a former actress, in a video by Jeff Seal. Sweeping through the dilapidated building on Lafayette in Bed-Stuy, the video shows hallways filled with trash, rooms that were once bathrooms, now covered in bits of fallen ceiling and caved in walls.

They’ve adjusted. “That brick is my stove! We’ve cocked some serious meals on that thing,” a squatter says.

No one here wants to be here. Many have been told multiple times to leave, but they “didn’t do shit.” Graffiti on the doors reads “HOME.”

The video is not off-the-hand exploitative and Seal insists, “I’m not a journalist, but I wanted it to be as objective as possible. I didn’t want to glamorize it, but then on the other hand, I didn’t want to pass judgment on them in any way, know what I’m saying?”