INTRODUCTION
The remnants of the crashed car were slowly becoming part of the neighborhood’s ecosystem…
In the summer of 2018 I encountered a mutilated and vandalized vehicle behind a Brooklyn police station and set out to learn the story behind this wreck. Over the following year, I immersed myself in a search for answers that led me to police records, archives, witnesses, and the friends and family of the driver.
The following investigation is an attempt to find meaning in this chance encounter and to piece together seemingly disconnected and chaotic objects and events.
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
01. THE REMINDER – JUNE 2018
INSTANT PHOTOGRAPH, NYPD 90th Precinct
487 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11206.
The totaled vehicle was stationed behind the parking lot of the NYPD 90th Precinct in South Williamsburg, under the elevated tracks of the M and J train. A catastrophic sight. The hood of the dark blue sedan was crumpled like a piece of paper. The windshield completely crushed. The guts of the engine exposed. Only a single door stood, now covered with layers of graffiti and stickers from local street artists and even a NYC mayoral candidate. Pieces of wood, broken glass, cardboard boxes, and plastic jugs littered the beige leather backseats. Both airbags, one pink, one white, were deflated. There were traces of blood on the steering wheel’s airbag.
These ruins appeared as the visceral incarnation of senseless chance. All it takes is just one unlucky coincidence. One wrong turn. And then, as if decided by the flip of a coin, it’s sudden death. A forgotten existence. A meaningless void.
The first time I came upon this scene I stopped, looked at it for a few minutes and kept walking.
Soon I forgot about it.
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
02. LINGERING QUESTIONS – OCTOBER 2018
GOOGLE MAPS STREET VIEW SCREENSHOT,
487 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11206.
Months later, the car remained outside the station. A passing police officer informed me that it was evidence in an ongoing investigation, restricting them from disclosing any details. I returned to photograph it. Not just once, but repeatedly. With each visit new questions emerged. If this vehicle serves as evidence, is this the typical way evidence is stored? Parked halfway onto the sidewalk, unguarded and exposed to vandalization? What do the neighbors think about its decaying presence?Why do people pose for selfies here? And, most importantly, what happened to the person behind the wheel?
Over the following weeks I observed how passersby engaged with the wreckage. Most just glanced over with concern and moved on. There were, however, some exceptions. One morning, while I was taking photographs, a Puerto Rican woman remarked that the ruined sedan had been sitting there “for years”. She said it was a stark reminder of the neighborhood's neglect, and crossed herself, commenting on the driver's level of intoxication. On another day, a young man expressed he appreciated encountering the vehicle during his daily commute to work. It wasn’t vandalized, he said. It was “Brooklyn-fied”, decorated with vibrant spray paint and branded with local stickers. This scene made New Yorkers actually stop, stare, pay attention. If someone had died in there, it was a form of commemoration.
One night, I saw three men taking turns photographing each other in front of the vehicle. One by one they crawled into the back seat and struck poses. I offered to take a group photo for them and they eagerly agreed. Two of them hopped inside, while the third climbed onto the roof, lay down on his back, and opened his mouth, as if dead. After the quick photoshoot, they asked me if I wanted a picture too. I declined.
Why would I want to pose in front of what was most likely the place of a stranger's death? Nevertheless, I did have hundreds of images of this scene. From various angles. At different times of the day. Details of the graffiti and shattered glass. Close-ups of the blood-stained airbag. How was I different from the people posing with the car?
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
03. THE CRASH – OCTOBER 2018
NYPD TRAFFIC COLLISION REPORT, public record providing a breakdown of every motor vehicle collision in NYC.
By looking up the sedan's model and matching it to accidents that took place around June 2018 in the East Williamsburg area, I was able to find key details about the incident. Three local news articles confirmed that:
Esteban Sánchez, 29, crashed his 2006 Infiniti M35 sedan into a stationary trailer parked on Johnson Av., between Bushwick Av. and Humboldt St., at 3 AM on Thursday, June 28, 2018.
Sánchez’s car was traveling westbound on Johnson Av. when it struck the trailer, continuing under the vehicle until it came to rest.
Emergency responders rushed Sánchez, in critical condition, his 39-year-old passenger and a 30-year-old man who had been in the trailer, both in stable condition, to nearby Woodhull Hospital.
Sánchez, a resident of the Borinquen Plaza Projects, located on Humboldt St., one block away from the incident’s location, succumbed to head injuries days later on July 2, 2018.
Police made no arrests and the investigation remained ongoing.
All of the articles were published on July 25, 2018. I reviewed the NYPD traffic collision report, spoke to the police, emailed journalists and interviewed local business owners. None of that produced more information about the accident.
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
04. THE TRAILER – NOVEMBER 2018
HAND-DRAWN DIAGRAM, Esteban Sánchez’s route on the night of the accident.
On the night of the accident, June 28, 2018, Esteban Sánchez was driving home on Johnson Avenue. Cloudy skies and distant thunder hinted at an impending rainstorm. As he approached the left turn onto his street, he violently collided with a stationary office trailer. The car continued under the trailer until it was almost halfway through, crushing the driver's side and trapping Esteban Sánchez underneath, leaving him with severe head trauma.
Why was a large trailer obstructing Johnson Avenue at 3 AM? Could this be a case of criminal negligence, possibly explaining why the police were keeping the remnants of the Infiniti M35 as evidence after three months?
The trailer in question served the construction site of 222 Johnson Avenue, a new seven-story residential building marketed as “the new kid on the block: where lifestyle meets luxury in Williamsburg”. I couldn’t find any claims of liability against the builders. Esteban Sánchez lived just one block from the accident in one of the 934 units within the Borinquen Plaza projects. This public complex was built in the 1960s to provide housing for low-income residents, particularly Puerto Rican families. Throughout the years, the development has contended with high crime rates, poverty, and inadequate infrastructure.
The trailer represented the neighborhood’s imminent transformation and Esteban Sánchez, trapped under its weight, violently collided with what was about to come.
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
05. THE GUARD – NOVEMBER 2018
CONTACT SHEET, intersection of the accident site
222 Johnson Av., Brooklyn, NY, 11206
I visited the accident site at 3 AM, the same time as the crash.
A stationary trailer and a small, portable security booth constructed from plastic and aluminum protruded into the left lane. The on-duty guard shared two stories with me:
A month ago, a concerned neighbor warned him that the booth was not safe in its current location because there had been a crash recently. The guard notified his superiors, but no action was taken.
Days later, the guard witnessed a "big Spanish man" crying and praying across from the booth. This man informed the guard that his nephew had lost his life at that very spot.
A grieving family and concerned neighbors indicated this was not a forgotten story. So how could the container of Esteban Sánchez's death still be abandoned outside the station, just half a mile away from his home, exposed to his loved ones as a painful reminder of their loss?
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
06. TRIANGLE #1 – NOVEMBER 2018
REFERENCE MAP, Broadway Triangle
As I kept looking for answers about the crash, I began to explore the area where the car was stationed: the Broadway Triangle. A largely vacant yet contested space pinned between three rapidly gentrifying neighborhoods: Williamsburg, Bedford–Stuyvesant, and Bushwick.
In 2009, the New York City Council approved a rezoning plan designed to revitalize the area by permitting new development. The decision was controversial. Some residents praised the plan for bringing much-needed investment, while others argued it would displace low-income residents. A coalition of community groups filed a lawsuit claiming that the rezoning process had been discriminatory, exposing cultural tensions between the Hasidic, Hispanic, and Black communities living in the bordering neighborhoods. The Triangle remains a place where imminent development and neglect coexist.
PART I
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
07. TRIANGLE #2 – NOVEMBER 2018
REFERENCE MAP, connecting the points of the accident site, the hospital and the police station.
The police station is located at one of the three points of the Broadway Triangle, at the intersection of Broadway and Union Avenue. Woodhull Hospital, where the driver died, is situated at another point of the triangle, at the intersection of Broadway and Flushing. I walked around the triangle’s perimeter and returned to the accident site. As I traced my route on a map, I noticed the following connections:
The police station is located 0.5 miles from the hospital.
The hospital is located 0.5 miles away from the accident site.
The accident site is located 0.6 miles from the police station.
The accident site, hospital, and police station formed a second triangle with almost the same dimensions as the first. A car crash mirroring a cultural clash. A strange coincidence. Or was it something else? Some meaning beneath the randomness and chaos represented by that mutilated vehicle?
PART II
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
08. THE VICTIM – NOVEMBER 2018
INSTANT PHOTOGRAPH, Borinquen Plaza
Humboldt Street, Brooklyn, NY 11206.
After months of browsing, I finally found Esteban Sánchez on social media. His last Instagram post was shared just 10 days before the accident, on Father’s Day. It read:
“Happy Father's Day, to my real ones! Them dads that are real fathers! Big ups to ya! The real MVP's! No days off! Not a dad for a day! Father for life! Niggas don’ need a day a bbq or none that shit! Just love! Fathers first! Life happiness and everything else on pause for them! Can’t be happy if they not happy! My girls are my world! And don't need glorification for doing what god put me here to do!”
His feed was filled with loving comments and dozens of memorial entries by family members, friends, neighbors and clients from the Bushwick tattoo shop where he worked. Esco, as everyone called him, left behind two daughters and a wife.
PART II
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
09. THE POLICE – JANUARY 2019
NYPD POLICE CARD, Detective Juan Roman
90th Precinct Community Affairs
Two months after the vehicle was finally removed, I returned to the 90th Precinct's Office of Community Affairs to ask why it had remained there for so long. Detective Juan Roman's answers were ambiguous, contradictory, and indifferent. He claimed that the precinct's storage had been full, there had been paperwork issues, and the car had only been outside for a few weeks. However, I knew this was false, as it had been five months. Detective Roman became uncomfortable when I pressed for more clarity. He asked me if I was with the media and said he didn't need to answer my questions.
I asked if anyone had complained about the car. He said no one had because the deceased didn't have any family.
PART II
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
10. THE LIFE BEHIND THE WHEEL – JANUARY 2019
INSTANT PHOTOGRAPH, David Toledo at Crazy Monkey Tattoo, 882 Broadway, Brooklyn, NY 11206.
After my conversation with the officer, I decided to contact someone who knew Esco personally. My first step was to visit the Bushwick shop where he worked, Crazy Monkey Tattoo. There, I met Esco’s boss and close friend. David, in his late forties, looked worn and stressed as he clutched a pack of Marlboros Red. When I asked about Esco, his eyes widened, and he spoke seriously, honored to share the "long, complicated, and sad story" that led to his friend's death.
For over two hours, I sat in the back room of the parlor and listened to David's recount of Esco's life, the day of the accident, and its aftermath.
PART II
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
11. THE VIDEO – FEBRUARY 2019
VIDEO STILLS AND NOTES - “FATAL CAR VS. TRAILER”, YouTube video of Esco’s rescue operation.
I found the Youtube video that David had referred to during our conversation. It was posted by LoudLabs NYC, a "media company specializing in overnight NYC Breaking News Coverage of Crimes, Fires, & Crashes”. This video, uploaded on June 29, 2018, had garnered over 100,000 views.
The recording captured the immediate aftermath of the accident. Dozens of firefighters, police officers, and a growing crowd of onlookers had gathered around the wreckage. After a long and difficult extrication, emergency workers rescued Esco from his car, unconscious. The trailer had struck the windshield, and its wooden floor structure had slammed into Esco's face. Emergency workers initiated CPR and rushed him to Woodhull Hospital with flashing lights and blaring sirens.
It was brutal to watch. I couldn’t reconcile Esco, a father, an artist, loved by his friends, family and community, with the man shown in the video. Dying as the camera relentlessly zoomed in and out, trying to capture the perfect shot of his contorted face.
PART II
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
12. A DEADLY TRAP – FEBRUARY 2019
NYC DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION PERMIT, permission to to occupy the roadway and/or sidewalk with a trailer.
Watching Esco’s sedan crushed beneath the massive trailer amplified my doubts about the legality of its presence. I dug deeper into construction company regulations and learned that a $50 permit allows for the installation of temporary office trailers for up to 90 days.
An online search on NYC Permit Management System revealed that the 222 Johnson Avenue development was indeed registered for this permit. I forced myself to rewatch the video, this time paying close attention to the visual details of the accident. It seemed they had complied with all the regulations, including the installation of fencing and markings around the trailer.
There wasn’t anything illegal about the trailer’s presence that night. In New York City, construction companies are allowed to obstruct roads with large structures all day. All night. Even after working hours. Even if it disrupts daily life, at the expense of residents’ safety. Nevertheless the trailer was the reason for Esco’s death. A deadly trap in the middle of the road, just one turn away from home.
PART III
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
13. THE PASSENGER – MARCH 2019
VIDEO SCREENSHOT, the 39-year-old passenger who survived the accident.
The only person who knew exactly what happened that night was Esco's girlfriend, the 39-year-old passenger. David offered to connect me with her. She hadn't been welcomed at the hospital and couldn't say goodbye to Esco, so he believed she’d be eager to share her story.
I kept in touch with David, taking photos for the shop’s social media and checking in on him often. After a few weeks, he told me he couldn't remember Esco's girlfriend's name. They had been talking on Instagram, but the shop's account was hacked so he couldn't see their messages anymore.
I went through all of their Instagram followers, sending him screenshots of profiles from similar-looking women. He said none of them were her.
PART III
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
14. THE STRINGER – MARCH 2019
INSTANT PHOTOGRAPH, the video’s author at Starbucks, 476 4th Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11215.
I reviewed the comments on the YouTube video. Amid heated discussions regarding the FDNY’s extrication techniques and speculations about the accident's cause, many people were curious about the "woman in the red hoodie.” She was the female passenger seen in the video, seemingly unhurt but clearly distressed as she closely followed and occasionally recorded the rescue process.
I contacted LoudLabs to ask about the accident scene, hoping the cameraman had the passenger's name. Adam, the stringer who runs and shoots all their content, agreed to meet at a South Slope Starbucks. He warned me he might need to leave if a major news story involving severe injuries came up. Although Adam didn't have the passenger's name, he managed to obtain the official police report:
On Thursday, June 28, 2018 at approximately 0310 hours, police responded to a 911 call of a motor vehicle collision involving a single vehicle and a trailer, on Johnson Avenue between Bushwick Avenue and Humbolt Street, within the confines of the 90 Precinct. Upon arrival, officers observed a 2006 Infiniti M35 sedan under an stationary construction trailer, with two occupants inside the vehicle. EMS responded to the location and transported the 29-year-old male operator to Woodhull Hospital in critical condition with severe head trauma, where he succumbed to his injuries on Monday, July 2, 2018. The vehicle's 39-year-old female passenger was also removed to Woodhull Hospital via EMS, in stable condition. There was one construction worker in the trailer at the time of the collision, a 30-year-old male, who was removed to Woodhull Hospital in stable condition with shoulder pain. Further investigation by the NYPD Highway District's Collision Investigation Squad determined the vehicle was traveling westbound on Johnson Avenue between Bushwick Avenue and Humbolt Street when it struck a stationary construction trailer which was located opposite 225 Johnson Avenue, at the location. Upon impact, the vehicle continued under the trailer before coming to a rest. There were no other vehicles involved in the incident. There are no arrests and the investigation remains ongoing.
The deceased has been identified as:
Sanchez, Esteban , 29-year-old male
Even in the official report, the woman was referred to as “the vehicle's 39-year-old female passenger”. The officers did not write down her name.
PART III
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
15. THE WIFE – APRIL 2019
BORINQUEN PLAZA, Humboldt Street, Brooklyn, Ny 11206.
After seven months of working on this project, I felt it was time to contact Eileen, Esco's wife. I went to his apartment in the Borinquen Plaza projects. The intercom didn't work, but a mailman let me in. Esco's brother-in-law opened the door slightly. Aggressive dogs barked inside. He didn't know where Eileen lived anymore, but said her mother's apartment was in the tower across.
The doorbells in the other building were also out of order. This time, a NYCHA worker allowed me inside. Eileen's mother wasn't home, but a family friend named Joanna was there. After explaining my intentions, she eventually opened the door. We talked about the impact of Esco’s death in their community and the indifference of the police. Joanna offered to share my phone number with Eileen, so she could decide whether she wanted to contact me. Joanna emphasized how painful Esco's death had been for his wife, suggesting I should be relieved I hadn't encountered Eileen: she would have slammed the door in my face.
Hours later, Eileen called me. She was angry and confused, wondering how I found her address and why I cared so much about the car. Unlike David and Joanna, who spoke to me in Spanish, she wanted to speak in English. I struggled to find the right words to explain my intentions. At the end of our conversation, she said that she understood, but didn't want to share anything with me.
PART III
A CHRONICLE OF CHANCE INTERSECTIONS
EPILOGUE
At the end of the investigation, I found myself with an overflowing and chaotic archive: stacks of Polaroids and printouts of digital and analog photographs; Ziploc bags containing brochures, cards, and even glass from the car; journals filled with notes, interview transcripts, obsessive maps, and drawings; copies of text exchanges, news clippings, screenshots of Google Maps street views, and video stills of the rescue operation. What did this accumulation of circumstantial materials reveal?
On a personal level, the life story of the person behind the wheel - an intimate account of love, family, failure of relationships, friendship, and ultimately, tragedy. As David recounted, the death of his beloved friend at just 29 years old was the result of a series of contingent factors and unfortunate decisions: receiving distressing news, sleep deprivation, bad weather, holes in the road, speeding in a car he struggled to control, the massive trailer obstructing his path. Everything leading to a fatal accident. The cruel intersection of chance and death.
On another layer, the investigation revealed a microcosm of the city. The story of a neighborhood caught between neglect and renewal. The clashing nature of urban change. The area’s abandonment and lack of resources. The collision between past and future. A resident from the Borinquen Plaza Projects was crushed underneath a trailer that served the construction of a new luxury building in his neighborhood. Esco got trapped in the endless cycle of transformation and displacement.
I spread all of the materials on a large desk, slowly categorizing them into folders. An attempt to tame this surplus of information. This text and these images, a small selection of those hundreds of materials, are an attempt to tame chaos too. But it persists. It’s beyond control. Chaos. Chance. Choice. Forces that don’t work in opposition of each other. They are deterministic, and unpredictable. Intersecting continuously. Meaning, purpose, order, death, deconstruction, disorder. It’s all hiding in plain sight. In any corner, any intersection.
