THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

That summer was thick, the temperture building to a fever right before it breaks.  Before planes crashed into buildings and the shops on the Lower East Side were interchangeable with those on Madison Avenue.  Before Columbine christened a new era of adolescent assassins, before reality television became a cultural mainstay, before MTV’s teen moms filled the glossies with their latest sex tapes.  The release of “Kids” 20 years ago was in so many ways a beautiful, prophetic disaster, a last call for New York that has since been replaced with vestiges, facades and memorials.

Di Donato/Salon