Amy Coady: curator of @gantrygram, a popular Instagram account that features stunning photographs of the LIC waterfront with 5,812 followers

Amy Coady: @GantryGram and Sophie: @Sophie_Frenchie_NYC

“When we first moved here it felt like the edge of the Earth.  Then all of a sudden people started to come out and they started to build. I noticed I took pictures every single time I would go out because the sunsets and everything here are so beautiful.  We’d be meeting people at the Landing and I thought, ‘I’m just going to look at some hashtags for Long Island City and see what people are doing.’ And there’s just some of the most beautiful photographs being taken by New York centric photographers . I love photography, so I’d thought, ‘I’d just snap some pictures and put them up’. I told my husband, ‘Oh my god, I have five followers! That’s great!’ I was like I can’t believe there are five people who would want to follow this. Then as everything has grown, more and more of these gorgeous pictures come in. I try to do 85 percent my own photos and I also try to share some because I’m just overwhelmed by how nice they are.  It’s just amazing when you see some of the nighttime shots, some of the Pepsi sign or whatever it is and you just feel so lucky to live out here.”

“When I first moved out here I thought I’d just do everything in Manhattan but pretty soon we were out here a lot more than I thought. So clearly something has evolved in the relationship with the place.  I think if you let yourself, if you’re not just passing through, this is an unusual place where you can have a relationship with it.  I think the transient quality is some of it. It isn’t this little corner where nothing is going to change. There’s been so much change but we’re all in this together.”