New York City | At Home with Tech

July 2, 2023

I Time Traveled to 1979 and into the Film Set of The Crowded Room at Rockefeller Center

I accidentally ended up walking through a scene from “The Crowded Room” on Apple TV+ right before filming began. Here’s what happened.

I walked quickly to work in New York City last summer. The day was July 5th, and I experienced something of a spatial anomaly. Before I knew it, I was suddenly transported in time back to 1979.

I knew the year was really 2022, but reality started to warp around me pretty quickly as I crossed through Rockefeller Center.

I Entered a Time Bubble
To the right, I noticed a film crew and a group of actors hanging out between takes next to the famous ice-skating rink landmark. The extras were all dressed in hideous outfits from the 1970s. I didn’t immediately think much about it. (I grew up in New York.)

I turned my gaze forward and approached a woman in black wearing a headset and clutching a clipboard. She seemed very 2022.

As I passed her and took an immediate left to walk west on 50th street towards Radio City Music Hall, I sensed a small commotion behind me and vaguely heard something about the street now being closed to pedestrians. I kept walking.

I looked ahead and was stunned by what I saw. The entire street had been reversed four decades. It was as if I had walked through a time bubble and popped out in the 1970s.

The cars…the signs…the people. All transformed.
Even Radio City Music Hall had signage promoting an upcoming Frank Sinatra performance.

Had my mind been somehow captured, and I was relocated into another season of “WandaVision?”

I Crashed a Scene from “The Crowded Room”
Not exactly. In fact, I was walking through a scene of “The Crowded Room,” starring Tom Holland on Apple TV+.
I had inadvertently slipped through right before a street scene was to be filmed. All of the extras were in place, and it was as if I were an extra too.

For the next two minutes, I walked through 1979, appreciating all of the design work that had been done to bring this famous street back to another era. And then there were the dozens of extras, all seemingly transported here from the ‘70s. That actually felt really weird and slightly destabilizing.

It’s interesting how easily it is to disrupt your sense of normal, even if you know what’s going on.

Return to Reality
As I approached Sixth Avenue, I saw another crew person in black holding back other versions of me wanting to take the same trip back in time. They were too late.

I popped out of the time bubble and reentered 2022. I heard people yelling behind me to ‘stand by’ and ‘take your places.’

I didn’t look back. I had my moment back in 1979, and I was satisfied.

And no, I didn’t brush past Tom Holland or any other movie stars. (That might have actually ruined my immersion into the past.)

It was just another New York moment:
July 5, 2022 at 8:40am.

You never know what you’ll see on the streets of New York City.

February 12, 2023

I Walked Out of my Childhood Home for the Last Time

I grew up in an apartment on the Upper East Side of New York City. It’s where my father and I posed for this fun picture that my mother took decades ago. This place held so many memories…

This past week, I closed down my father’s apartment, the same place where I grew up. When I shut his front door for very last time, the lock clicked with a painful finality. I will never walk in again.

He’s been gone for almost two months now, and I’ve been spending all of my spare time going through his belongings and clearing out his apartment.

I powered down his Verizon Internet modem and cancelled his phone number that was in place for almost six decades. It originally began with an ‘R’ and an ‘E’ (reflecting the word, ‘Regency’) instead of the corresponding numbers ‘7’ and ‘3.’ I can still remember how he used to proudly repeat the classic version of the numerical sequence, “My number is Regency 7…”

Last week, the movers came, and his furniture vanished. And then I finally walked into the moment I had been dreading for weeks. His place was entirely empty.

And then I had to shut the door.

Yes, it’s been a punishing few weeks.

Saving Memories
My father’s apartment was his castle. He filled it with objects and things that he loved. It was his own little museum.
My father seemingly drew energy from his home. I was influenced by that growing up. How could I not be?

In some ways, I approached clearing out his apartment like a type of evacuation. I searched urgently to uncover the most meaningful objects and photos to save.

But I think I wasn’t rescuing his belongings as much as trying to save my own memories.

It feels complicated.

A Child of the Building
Plus, I can’t help but accept the reality that I’ve also been struggling with the emotional loss of this Upper East Side Manhattan apartment that I grew up in and returned to across my entire life.

The 21-story apartment building and I were effectively born at the same time. My parents and baby Barrett were among the first to move in. And my dad was the last original resident.

I feel a type of cosmic connection to this place. I’m not talking only about the 15th floor apartment. I mean the entire building.

We grew up together. As a child on Halloween, I roamed its hallways each year with a small band of kids. I was there when the building was dark for 25 hours during the New York City blackout of 1977.
I have walked through its lobby with my father across the decades and two redesigns.

I am a forever child of the building.

And now, I am cast out.

I’m just beginning to deal with the loss of my father. Saying goodbye to his apartment is another blow.

I moved out decades ago, but I never really left.

My Mom’s Kitchen Pot
During the apartment clean out, I also ran across a number of my mother’s belongings, not to mention everything of hers still in the kitchen, which was her domain for over 40 years.

She’s been gone since 2006, and much of the kitchen froze in time from that point forward.

Recently, back home in Norwalk, my wife was cooking chickpeas and accidentally burned them, and the pot was ruined.

The next day, I found myself standing in my mom’s kitchen, and the perfect replacement pot appeared right in front of me.

It looked almost new, and it was, of course, spotless. Even with a light coating of dust, my mother’s pot still sparkled. And it called it me. So I stashed it away in the black transport bag I had.

After all of these years, my mom was seemingly still looking out for me. Still anticipating my every need. (Yes, she was always an over-protective Jewish mother.)

But I really appreciated this imagined effort…that somehow she was able to reach out across space and time with this loving gesture.

And as today is my birthday, I think I’ll extend out my psychological projection a little further.

Thank you, Mom for your birthday present. It’s perfect.

Goodbye
Yes, both my parents are now gone. And I’ve walked out of their apartment and the original center of my universe for the last time.

I’ve saved some meaningful items, a few pieces of furniture that my family and I will repurpose and lots of photos that need to be digitized.

If there’s any kind of silver lining to this grueling experience, it’s this: Perhaps I don’t have to entirely say goodbye to my childhood home. The memories of my life there continue to live inside of me.
And the photos I’ve retrieved will hopefully help to maintain the memories for generations to come.

Time to Move Forward
So now what? I’ve done a lot of doing. My back is sore, and I’m tired.

All of the physical work is finally done. I’ve returned home. I am present again.

It’s time to start some emotional healing.

I think that’s the best birthday gift I can give myself.

November 27, 2022

How to Improve your Street Photography by Ignoring the Details

Usually there’s not enough time to focus on setup when capturing a photographic moment. So don’t. Here’s what to do instead.

When you walk about in the city, do you sometimes see moments that would make for a perfect photo, if only you had a camera in your hand? Yes, me too. In fact… all of the time.

Sure, my iPhone is always right there in my pocket as I move throughout New York City, and I often grab for it to capture a fleeting image right in front of me. It’s all about how fast you can get off a couple shots before the scene shifts and the opportunity evaporates. I can’t tell you how many photos I’ve missed over the years that were taken just a few seconds too late.

Use a Camera Strap to Speed Up your Response
Wearing your camera around your neck can trim away critical seconds, as you don’t have pull out your camera.

I recently bought a strap made by Peak Design (Slide Lite) for my Panasonic Lumix LX10. I got it for my family’s trip to Grand Canyon and the famous mule ride we took along the rim.

The strap was originally a one-use purchase. Why would I ever want to ruin the small form factor of my compact camera by attaching a bulky strap to it? But then I tried an experiment and wore the camera during one of my trips into New York City. And I quickly realized that strap was my ticket to better street photography.

Be Ready for the Photo
Discarding the concern that I would look like a tourist, I’ve now worn my camera several times walking uptown from Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan to visit my father. And let me tell you, having my camera right there near my hand is a game changer.

If you wonder why you may see any number of people walking about the city with cameras in their hands or about their necks, I think they’re all waiting for the next photo to appear. And they intend to be ready!

Point and Press
In my ongoing exploration of street photography, I’ve also been trying out an alternate shooting strategy. It’s simply to proactively point my camera at a potential scene as I walk by. Before I actually see anything worth capturing, I press the shutter a few times, move on and hope for the best. It’s all about playing the odds that the camera captured an image I didn’t have time to spot and process.

It’s about meeting a moment and reviewing it later to see if there’s actually any visual interest in it.

Happily, this technique has yielded unexpected success.

Photo Finish at the Track
My father likes to tell a story from the 1970’s when he practiced his own amateur photography with his old SLR camera. He was at Yonkers Raceway and had a seat up close near the finish line. As the horses crossed by in a flash, he simply squeezed his shutter button to burst through his 36-photo film roll.

Later, when he picked up his developed pictures from the photo store, he quickly sifted through the group. He saw a bunch of useless mushy blurs… all except for the last photo. It was perfect. It was like a shot you’d see on the sports page of the New York Post.
My father met the moment, pointed in the right direction, and his camera did the rest.

Your Speed Factor
Whether you see a moment or anticipate one, snapping your photo as quickly as possible is the key factor to better street photography. Plus, it really doesn’t matter what you see. It’s what your camera captures.

So, you might want to ignore more of the details and focus most of your attention on getting your camera going and its general position. Keep it simple. There’s often not more time for much else. You probably won’t know if you got ‘the shot’ until you review it later.

I’m still very much a student of this art form. That said, here are a few examples from my recent walks in Manhattan.