Father Patrick Moloney a.k.a. Father Pat is a longtime Lower East Side priest. He has run Bonitas House, a home for troubled boys at E. Ninth St. and Avenue B, since the 1950s. Back then, he threw dances as a peaceful social outlet for local gangs. Later on, in 1988, he stood with the anti-gentrifiers during the Tompkins Square Park riots. Moloney also did time in jail after being convicted for being in possession of money from a $7.4 million Brink’s heist — the fifth largest robbery in U.S. history. However, he maintains he was a scapegoat in that case.
Documenting the Lower East Side and East Village for more than three decades, as Clayton Patterson has done, you get to know a lot of people. Whether hanging in the ’hood and catching the latest VR doings at Jump Into the Light, a couple of blocks from his home/gallery, chilling outside Stop 1 deli, catching the latest arts event, or snapping a pic of Father Pat up in the East Village, Patterson gets around.
Sometimes the documenter gets documented. Mehow from Jump Into the Light, the virtual-reality mecca at 180 Orchard St., caught Clayton Patterson and Elsa Rensaa having coffee outside 1 Stop, at Allen and Stanton Sts. (Courtesy Clayton Patterson)Charlie is a Chinese print interpreter now in his 80s. “He hasn’t changed in the 25 years I have known him,” the photographer said. (Photo by Clayton Patterson)
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