I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when the payphone became ancient history, when it became obsolete and antique. It was clearly not a moment at all, but it happened over the past 20 years and it felt as though it…
Hot summer days in New York City, humid nights. It’s enough to just walk the dog, scramble around, look for a buck, eat pizza and wonder when the city pools will ever reopen. It seems as though the indoor public…
I’m stopped at a traffic light at 210th Street and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, the northernmost borough of New York City. The young woman in the driver’s seat of the car next to me is holding up a…
# # # # # I would like to say that my whole photography career began with shooting motel signs, but that would be a lie on a few counts. First, it’s not really a career. Not a paying one,…
I’m writing this while drinking coffee. It’s in a big, old fashioned mug – brown glazed with a tiny chip on the handle – from the Hull Company. I found it second-hand in old Greenwich Village at a place that…
My favorite kind of road trip usually devolves into a series of decisions about what direction I’m going to take that day. I wake up and check the weather to see if there is anything I need to avoid. I…
I’m socially distant in the best of times. Years ago, I realized that I actually need people and enjoy the company of other humans, but that doesn’t mean companionship comes naturally to me. When I go on road trips, I…
“The world has gone mad today And good’s bad today, And black’s white today, And day’s night today, And that gent today You gave a cent today Once had several chateaux.” I sometimes think of happier times. What is “happy,”…
I’m going to bribe myself to finish this now, so that I can stop beating myself up for NOT finishing it. I don’t know if most people have to work that way, but sometimes that’s what it takes. If I…
Paul Vlachos is a New Yorker who understands The West. And he is a New Yorker who understands New York. Wherever Paul goes, he finds signs of life… I was going to write about “quiet.” It’s a subject close to…