Their deaths are invisible, counted with makeshift memorials made out of cardboard, store-bought religious candles, and laminated photographs to survive the elements. Photojournalist Andrew Lichtenstein has been roaming New York City neighborhoods for the last six months, documenting material evidence of gun-related homicides, attempting to photograph each within 48 hours of the murder. Left on the street, the memorials don’t last for long; some are picked over, and others fade away into the detritus of sidewalk life.



Marlon Shuffler, age 22. Killed in Crown Heights. March 10, 2016.

Once, Lichtenstein found four memorials on a single block in East Flatbush. This one, at the corner of Brooklyn’s 541 Lincoln Place, was for for Marlon Schuffler, a 22-year-old father of two who was fatally shot as he walked with friends in Crown Heights. The cardboard boxes are covered with messages, and also shelter dozens of candles from the wind. Passersby in these rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods glance quickly past the site of a fresh murder and loving notes left by grieving friends and family.