When it comes to tenderness, and rawness documenting the Lower East Side of Manhattan, there is no way around Clayton Patterson. The Canadian-born, (via a few weeks of Brooklyn) LES-based photographer, artist, activist, and outcast has been documenting his hood since the early ‘80s. With thousands of pictures, history books, and a deep belonging to a neighborhood rather neglected before the real-estate boom, his work has become a multi-generational body of art. When SoHo was the Mecca for the young and creative, Clayton moved his art concentration to the Clayton Gallery & Outlaw Art Museum on 161 Essex Street. From youngins to pushers, thugs, gangbangers, graffiti crews, to high school deans and rockers of culture, his Hall Of Fame is a contemporary LES piece of witness, shot at the Wall of Fame right in front of his front door. Dubbing it a “neutral zone,” Clayton’s 161 Essex Street location was the quiet place for an otherwise rough area, which has been cleaned and patched-up, to meet the needs of investors to keep the skyrocketing housing prices escalating. Like many, but even a bit louder, Clayton Patterson uses his (today quite famous) voice to shed light on gentrification issues. Fundamentally, he doesn’t stop when it gets ugly, Clayton is documenting police brutality since the ‘80s, peaking with the riots in Tompkins Square Park in ’88. When Oprah recognizes your work, you know what’s up, and when Anthony Bourdain calls you the Godfather of Lower East Side documentary, the underground you were such a long time a part of, becomes a blurring memory. But far from it, even though the 99-cent breakfasts have disappeared, Clayton keeps fighting to not let New York becomes more and more a “bla bla city” (his words), and to keep the American Dream alive, which is why we tip our hat to a true New York legend (our words). Read our interview with a pioneer in his space(following soon) and if you couldn't check out the Clayton Patterson exhibition at Sneakersnstuff New York on 2nd of May, it is now online.