Skyline Guarding
One Friday night after I left the office where I worked in Lower Manhattan, I took the subway to Gantry State Plaza Park in Queens, directly opposite Midtown Manhattan, to take photos of the skyline.
It was a beautiful evening with people in the park as usual. Many people took pictures with their cameras or cell phones. I began taking photos as well.
After about twenty minutes, a NYC police car drove up to me along the waterfront. One of the two officers said that they had received a 911 call that someone was taking a picture of the United Nations with a “high powered” camera. I was the suspect.
I was incredulous. “Seriously?” I said to the officers. “That’s unbelievable.” I showed them my camera (a middle of the road Canon SLR). I had used a normal focal length lens for 99% of my shots, and a telephoto for another 1% which I always use for sunsets. Why would anyone suspect me of engaging in a terrorist act?
I was wearing tan khaki pants, light blue shirt and a blue tie (loosened because of the heat). My normal sized backpack contained my cell phone and the camera lens. I was also wearing headphones and listening to music.
I mentioned to the officers that I had lived in NYC for decades and for a long time I even had brothers who had been cops elsewhere in the U.S. But the police had quickly assessed me as a total non-problem anyway. One of them smiled after learning that I was there specifically to take pictures of the sunset and he told me that I didn’t look like a threat. He said to continue as I was doing. I got the impression that they agreed that the concern by the caller was ridiculous. Other words come to mind to describe the caller’s actions. And it’s definitely not illegal to take pictures of the New York City skyline. But when someone calls 911, they must check it out. New York City is always on alert.
As I resumed taking photos, I thought about what had just happened. I had been singled out of all the people in the park to the point that someone felt compelled to make an emergency phone call. But why?
I remembered that soon after I arrived, an older, heavy set white man had been watching me very closely. I hadn’t paid much attention to him. I saw him grab his cell phone while looking at me. I quickly became convinced that he was the caller.
Still, I was not using a tripod or blocking anyone. I was not making noise or acting erratic. I am not a big, tall, scary person with strange habits, clothing or speech. I am a normal guy, but apparently not according to that other guy’s definition. Why?
I am also a black male and in reality that is reason enough for some people in America to automatically assume that I am potentially a criminal or apparently in this case, that I was taking a picture of the most famous skyline in the world for nefarious reasons. My shirt, tie and middle class, office worker look was not sufficient to deter him. And it definitely wasn’t the first time in New York City or elsewhere that I was falsely accused of doing something wrong solely because of my race.
He specifically mentioned my “high powered” camera. I am certain that if I was a white male, my camera wouldn’t have caused any alarm. But the white man, who was apparently not used to seeing a black man with a camera, had convinced himself that such a possession in my hands was unfathomable and unacceptable.
In retrospect, I would like to have talked to him. What was he thinking? Was he deciding who could come to a public park and take pictures and who could not? And especially, why would he think a terrorist would first go all the way to Queens to take pictures of a scene photographed so often and placed on the web so much that no one could possibly count the images already available?
But he couldn’t mar the sheer beauty of the play of light and towers from the park, a view which is still owned by us all. Despite appointing himself the racial guardian of the skyline.