United Nations
East Midtown
view from Queens, NY
January 1982
The Theft
The following story is an edited version from a essay entitled Twenty-Six,
a longer article with photos that chronicles my first full year in New York City.
This version also excludes photographs and additional descriptions
of Ross who I worked for at that time.
In July 1979, during my first full year of living in New York City, I never had enough funds to fully finance my constant need for film and supplies, tuition at the School of Visual Arts (SVA) or many other desires, despite working, through temporary agencies, at various companies in Manhattan. More than once, I obtained a part-time job in the evening to earn extra money. Working during the day and on several evenings, as well as taking photography courses whenever I could on any other evenings or on weekends, meant long days and nights. In the meantime, I continued exercising where I lived at a residence YMCA in Brooklyn, driven by my desire to stay in shape.
One of the jobs that I took involved basic clerical work at an office near Grand Central Terminal. My boss was Ross, a British woman, with whom I was often working alone in a single large room. We began to have casual conversations that soon evolved into a situation where Ross was being flirtatious with me, a young black man (with an Afro) who wore the styles of the day that included tight jeans and shirts over a slim, healthy physique.
The way Ross talked to me involved increasingly open, sexually suggestive remarks. I didn't necessarily encourage our conversations but I didn't really discourage her. I simply tried not to take it too seriously. From her perspective, she was a decently attractive young woman in her thirties and I should normally have been interested in her if I was a red-blooded American (black) male. There could have been some wishful stereotyping of me on her part. But my interests in those days were about sheer survival and exploring New York companies in the pursuit of stability and a growing career. The part-time work with Ross was well below my skill set and would not result in significant money or advancement. Nevertheless, during one of our talks, she joked that "I didn't hire you for your typing skills." It was a complimentary line I never forgot and it has always made me smile whenever I think of her.
I let Ross know more about me by showing her my photographs which made it more understandable why I was in New York and what my career efforts were aimed at. She saw my portfolio which contained samples of photojournalism, architecture/cityscapes/nature/conceptual, and especially portraits. She liked what she saw and thought I was a skilled photographer. Eventually, I photographed Ross by a window in the office. She told me that she loved the pictures, which I also thought were sensitive and wonderful. The images featured soft lighting and captured her loveliness.
Ross lived in an exceptional apartment complex in United Nations Plaza, which was located directly north of the United Nations and which overlooked the entire UN complex. It may have been provided to her by the UK government, or a corporation or another entity affiliated with the UK. I didn't think she owned or could have occupied the apartment on her own but I don't remember any information she may have told me about her residency there. Although she could easily walk from the office on 42nd Street to her apartment, she usually took a taxi since it was always dark when we stopped working. Ever the gentleman who was the concerned about the safety of females, I always tried to make sure that she got home okay.
One evening in July of 1979, after we left the office, Ross and I might have stopped briefly for her to get some carry out food. Afterward, we took a taxi to her apartment on East 48th Street. I paid the taxi driver and asked him to wait while I walked her to the front door of the building. I told him that I was going to come right back to take the taxi further. My camera and my portfolio were in the back seat.
As I stood a few feet away saying good night to Ross, suddenly, the taxi driver gunned the accelerator and fled, tires screeching in deliberate hurry. My Canon FTb 35mm SLR was inside, along with my camera case and many of my best photographs that were even more critical and priceless to me. He didn’t care. He saw the opportunity to steal what was, to him, my camera. He almost ran a red light in his haste, doing everything he could to get away with something that was valuable. I immediately ran behind the taxi but I could not catch him.
Ross saw what happened and of course felt bad, as though it was partially her fault. She also realized what had just happened. But there was nothing either of us could do. I left her and went down to First Avenue near 42nd Street where I called the police from a pay phone. They were entirely unwilling to take a report. They didn’t care either and seemed to make that very clear over the phone.
I learned valuable lesson that night. I never again trusted anyone for even a second with my cameras or equipment. I never allowed any luggage containing anything valuable to be in a taxicab without me or in the trunk of a taxicab. Every important possession since then has to rest with me at all times. Wherever I go, my equipment and electronics also go, at times as if they were surgically attached to me.
I stopped working with Ross that night although I didn't blame her for what had happened. I just needed to find a way to recover from the devastation of losing my portfolio and I had to move quickly on to figuring out how to buy a new camera which I really couldn't afford. I managed to scrape together the money in about three weeks, which was a miracle.
But my irreplaceable photos were lost forever, likely thrown away by the taxi driver. Anyone who saw my portfolio would have realized just how destructive his crime had been to my life and career. I have always believed that when someone does such an awful thing to another person, life will somehow find a way to punish them ten times over for what they did, and it will be in an unavoidably related manner. The taxi driver, then, may have eventually reaped what he sowed, and experienced an extreme loss of something that was overwhelmingly important to him. Unfortunately, I will never know, but I trust that the universe sentenced him in a way that he would never forget.