Rockefeller Plaza, Fall 2006. This was one of my first times to NYC, and it soon won over my heart a found it’s place in my top favorite cities. The opportunities for picture taking were unlike anything that I’d experienced up to that point and I found myself very inspired.
And if I’m not completely mistaken, this was also the trip that I stumbled across the guy on the subway that had stolen a Christmas tree (see picture below). He was Jewish, and the whole situation wreaked of the ironic. I started chatting him up about his stolen tree, and he said that he had no use for it but was just going to take it a dump it on the doorstep of somebody that he hated. I mentioned that if he was so anxious to get rid of it that I would take it off his hands, free of charge. He refused, but said that he’d sell it to me for $25.
At this point another fellow passenger piped in and said that it was a mitzvah, and that in order to make up for the theft of the tree it should be given away. Long story short, the Jewish man wasn’t having anything to do with it, and promptly took his water bottle filled with vodka and his Christmas tree and left at the next stop.
I slept well that night knowing that I’d given it my best shot.
