MPW.74 / 2022 Scenes From the Colony by Orit Ben-Ezzer
Photographer
Orit Ben-Ezzer Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

Team Lee

Story Summary

Colony Plaza is a federally funded apartment tower in Excelsior Springs with 111 one bedroom apartments where people from different backgrounds find their home. From recovering addicts through grief-struck mothers to an off Broadway theatre director, they each have a story, often of loss and displacement, that brought them here, and their own unique way to make this their home. Roberta enjoys bingo night, coloring, and feeding her friends in the monthly potluck. Tony, who just celebrated 90 days of sobriety finds comfort in God and bible studies. Linda walks her dog, Zippie, and cries often. Tanya reads Ruth Bader Ginzburg and prefers keeping to herself when she is not working at the off Broadway theatre or the dance studio that was founded by her mother nearly 80 years ago. Together, they intertwine into a delicate social fabric, telling the story of life in small-town America.