Once you start living downtown, it can begin to feel like a big kids high school. It's like never never land, a place where one can stay young forever. The taxis begin to feel like the school buses. The restaurants are like our cafeterias. The bars and clubs are like our school dances and the streets are like our high school hallways!

But if downtown NYC were really a high school, what would it look like and who would the school body be?

Inspired by both the traditional American high school yearbook and Ezra Petronio's book "Bold and Beautiful" of Self Service, THE YOUNG AND THE BANGING is a downtown NYC yearbook that provides a look at almost 200 new faces of todays creative youth through polaroid photography.

A first of its kind, co-created by 15 girls or as PURPLE magazine calls them, "A fascinating NEW GENERATION born into the realms of fashion, art and success." The contributors include local favorites Tracy Antonopoulos, Sage Grazer, Rachel Smith, Philippa Price, Nicole Saldana, Louise Erhard, Laura Gerster, Katia Hakko, Kate Brien, Kathy Lo, Julia Tepper, Dana Veraldi, Carly Mark, Anna Skladmann and Amanda Merten.

We invited them to partner as co-creators to make the book through artistic collaboration. They were asked to highlight the young and creative people around them through Polaroid photography to act as their class photo and given spreads in the book to design in a way that best represented the lifestyle and creativity of those people.

- Heron Preston

Softcover 9 x 12 in., 174 pages