Gallery: Photos of Ocean Community Mix Grit and Beauty
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Bryce Morris, 15, explores the jetty while playing in East Ocean View.
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William Boyd (left) rests with his fiance, Monique Stevens, after a pickup basketball game in Ocean View. Right on the main drag, squeezed between the Ocean View Senior Center, a bus stop and a demolished beach motel, it's an open space that lures guys from all directions. One man wanders over to play and bums change before leaving.
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A dive bar encourages people to ride the storm out inside.
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A plane flies over as a sailboat lingers on the Chesapeake Bay off Ocean View after the weekly Little Creek sailboat race.
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"Getting money, fast cash every day is a very addicting lifestyle." It's harder to survive this way, Rapper Tony "Nucklez" LaBella said, but, "if I'm doing music, I can't do anything illegal." For the past nine years he's lived here, mostly in Ocean View, as has his crew of friends. They formed the backdrop of his music video while he filmed outside of Hector's Tire and Rims. At 29 he says he has more insight now than he did hustling on the streets. "I did run with some very notable people out there. Every part in Ocean View is tight. The group that you roll with is your family," he said. "When you cross that bridge on Shore Drive, it's like it's own little city."
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Sean Bishop, 19, and Ashley Williams, 20, flirt while hanging out at the Ocean View Fishing Pier in Norfolk, Virginia.
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Oysters cook under wet burlap at the Annual Knights of Columbus Oyster Roast.
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A few neighbors watch a small parade during Ocean View's National Night Out. The anti-crime event aims to increase awareness and strengthen police programs.
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East Beach resident Jacelyn McCune stands with her dogs Caylie and Chloe. "What are little dogs for except to dress them up?" she laughed.
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Chairs dangle from a storm-ravaged deck.
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A die-hard fisherman pulls up a catch as Hurricane Earl passes through Ocean View.
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Liz Majeskie (center) parties with friends in the Chesapeake Bay in Ocean View on the Fourth of July.
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A flock of birds fly over Ocean View Inn while people hang out on the balcony. Many residents who can't afford an apartment pay weekly rates to stay in one of a handful of cheap motels in the area.
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"Airbrush Frank" Letchworth paints his truck out of a garage in East Ocean View. Though he grew up in the area, he says he's been on the road for 35 years and living in his truck since May. He says Ocean View has "a real diversity" with its million-dollar homes and crackhead prostitutes.
