Los Sures is a time-capsule of a New York City that’s long gone. Diego Echeverria’s documentary, comprised entirely of footage taken at the time and following a few select citizens, takes place in South Williamsburg in 1984. Once a neighborhood of newly immigrated Puerto Ricans and second-generation Americans, it often feels like we’re watching something from another world. Kids breakdance to electro on the streets, and you can hear how modern hip-hop is right around the corner. Passersby carry boomboxes on their shoulders, school children play with the water from a broken hydrant. Even the police officer that shows up for peace and order seems as though he’s just a part of the neighborhood, as opposed to a threat or an enemy of the people. At times, the neighborhood portrayed here looks like a beautiful place to grow up. But of course, that’s not the whole story. This was, after all, once considered the worst ghetto in America.

Echeverria structured this film around a handful of Los Sures residents, each of whom is introduced with a title card and some biographical context given by the subjects themselves. We follow them around their day to day, which gives us a glimpse into what kind of people live in this neighborhood. Tito, for example, is like an archetype of a low-income, inner-city neighborhood such as this. His brother was killed - a victim of the increase in crime and violence that made New York City so infamous back then - and you can tell that he’s lost all hope and trust in the system. He resorts to crime - stripping cars of their parts, selling drugs, etc. - to pay the bills. Where this is going is clear, and his third act is anything but positive. We follow a mother who is saddened by the increase in violence, and fearful for her kids and her family. The junkies block her entry to her building, as her front door has now become a place of business for them. This is in the midst of the 1980s crack-epidemic, and the camera moves through this time and place like a welcome visitor. We’re right in the thick of it, and nobody seems to notice or care about being filmed so closely.

Though Los Sures is fairly short for a documentary about subject matter as engaging and historical as this, it does its job well. It's a colorful snapshot of a time that many people living in New York today are completely unaware of, as they buy their lattés at their local Starbucks. South Williamsburg has been gentrified completely, and only a few remnants of this time remain. You can see leftovers of that time when you walk around the area, and how much of this history has been washed away. Los Sures gives us a more detailed, vibrant look at what it was really like here.