Times Square

Images of a lone figure crossing the street in an empty Times Square became a cliche of the pandemic. When I started shooting in Times Square last summer, it was because there were people there. It was still a place with a public street life. You could meet and talk with a stranger. Many of the people there were trying to make a living: the vendors, the Top View ticket sellers, the characters or entertainers as they are sometimes called, the Times Square Alliance staff, the photographers. Protestors still came to Times Square. Black Lives Matter demonstrators were frequently on the scene. I also learned a lot about foreign affairs from Turkey to Tigray from the many people who came to bring visibility to their causes. And performers still came to Times Square from the man who uses aluminum studs and empty buckets for percussion to the amazing Jena VanElslander, who brought dancers together to perform in the TSQ Project. The religious came to proselytize. Young people came to show off tricks on their bikes or skateboards. Employees of companies that were having IPOs came to celebrate. And regular New Yorkers came, often with young children in tow, looking for fun and a relief from the gloom of the pandemic. Times Square and the people I met there brought me relief too loneliness and isolation. I am deeply grateful for everyone I met and the public life that persisted in the heart of New York during this difficult year.