In August 2021 we sold our loft in New York City and moved north to the Hudson Valley. In December 2022, I returned to visit. This video includes 38 video shorts, assembled as I recorded them in a trance-like walk in midtown.
In 1987, I moved to New York to live and work. The energy everywhere seemed to propel people forward. It was a place like nowhere else I had lived before. I spent most days working hard. I was excited to be part of this working city.
In 1996, with my wife and two daughters, we moved into a loft in midtown, an area which at that time attracted both tourists and addicts. Amongst the crowds you could always glimpse a beggar stationed on the sidewalk.
As time passed I began to ignore what was happening in the streets all around me. I was one of 8 million — obsessed with how to make a living — how to get my next job. Every day, sounds startled me – a siren, horns or the music of a mitzvah bus spreading the teachings of Judaism around the Jewish holidays.
When I left New York during the outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, I entertained the idea of leaving New York permanently. It seemed like a sensible idea. I had a place to go to be safe. A bitter-sweet moment came in 2021 when we sold our loft and gave up our refuge from the busy streets—a quiet oasis in the middle of a bustling city.
Today, I feel like an outsider, yet longing to feel some connection to this place, or perhaps to my youth when I thrived here. Sometimes I’m sad I left, and that the city lives on happily without me.