PORTLAND, Maine — When photographer Mark Rockwood hung his latest photo show a month ago at The End, a bar at the foot of Munjoy Hill, he didn’t know anyone in the pictures. They were all anonymous kids Rockwood had made black-and-white portraits of 50 years earlier, on The Hill’s streets and sidewalks.
Now, Rockwood knows almost all of them by name.
Though Munjoy Hill’s faces, names and tax brackets have largely changed during the intervening years, word of Rockwood’s gritty, yesteryear pictures spread fast through local newspaper stories and social media channels. Soon, the people in the pictures started contacting Rockwood — and each other — sparking wistful reminiscences and rekindling long-lost friendships.
On Tuesday, the final night of the photo show, Rockwood, 74, hosted a closing party where he handed out hugs and complimentary prints to many of the the now-grown kids, all in their late 50s and early 60s.
“Holy crap,” said Mike Balzano, 61, standing in front of a print of himself and childhood friend Charlie DiFazio.
Rockwood snapped the image of the pair sitting astride a homemade wheeled contraption designed to streak down Munjoy Hill’s paved streets at high speed. Balzano was perched in the rear. His job was to drag his feet to slow them down.
“I went through a whole bunch of sneakers,” Balzano said.
Nearby, Diane Lee, 64, looked at a striking picture of herself and a childhood friend from around the same time. Both girls are wearing midriff-baring, wide-collared shirts and holding cigarettes. They appear both tough and vulnerable at the same time.
“Oh my God, there’s Debbie and I,” Lee said. “I think I was all of 13 — but it’s fine. That’s who I was. I was always a tomboy — and fearless.”
Lee said that back then, when she lived on St. Lawrence Street and then Wilson Street, every kid on Munjoy Hill felt like they were part of one giant family. She remembers going to impromptu dance parties in Balzano’s cousin’s backyard.
“Oh I bet,” Balzano said. “They had lots of parties.”
Dino Palestini of South Portland couldn’t make Tuesday’s shindig but said he remembers the day Rockwood approached him and his friend Bobby and asked to take their picture.
“We said sure,” Palestini said. “I think I was 10 or 11.”
The boys then threw their arms around each other as Rockwood clicked his shutter, freezing the boys in time, forever.
“We were on Atlantic Street. I lived at number 13 and Bobby lived across the street,” Palestini, 57, said.
Balzano, Lee and Palestini all agree money and gentrification has completely altered Munjoy Hill since they lived there as kids in the 1970s, when it was rattier but still home.
“Everything has changed,” Palestini said, “all the condos and stores and people from Massachusetts and New York.”
Rockwood said he remembers taking each one of the pictures.
“I was looking for something visual and hook-like, some moment that stood up above the fabric of everyday life,” he said. “I loved bearing witness to them, but I don’t think I can take much credit for the photos. They were all so willing. They craved some attention.”
Still, Rockwood never dreamed he’d meet anyone in the photos when he hung them a month ago. It wasn’t on his radar. Rockwood figured they’d all be far away or dead. Thus, he’s delighted that his photos, all these years later, are bringing joy while reconnecting some of The Hill’s scattered diaspora.
“I was just putting into the photographs what I thought should be in the photographs,” Rockwood said with a shrug. “How was I supposed to know I was doing something good?”
