From The Archives, 1980: Cleaning Cod Fish In Cape Broyle

January 21, 2026

From The Archives, 1980: Bullwinkle’s Canadian Cousin

January 7, 2026

The Story Behind My Ed Koch Photo

January 4, 2026

In December of 1983, my buddy Larry Penner asked if I could join him and his boss, Al DelliBovi, at New York City Hall to take some photos. Al was Regional Administrator of what was then known as the Urban Mass Transit Administration (UMTA), and Larry was his Deputy.

Their boss, the newly appointed National Administrator of the agency, Ralph Stanley, had a quick meet and greet scheduled with Mayor Koch, and they needed photos, so I agreed to join them at City Hall.

Here’s the fun part.

A year earlier, I defeated the incumbent in an upset Primary to become the State Committeeman and District Leader of Brooklyn’s 51st Assembly District. Being the local Party leader was an unpaid and often thankless job, and few ever made headlines and none got television or daily newspaper coverage — especially leaders of the minority party.

About three weeks before the photo session, a state judge ruled that Riker’s Island Jail was overcrowded, and summarily ordered Mayor Koch to release 1,000 prisoners. Koch’s response was to order inmates moved to floating prison barges on the East River. He also announced that he would use his authority to convert several privately owned sites around the city to new jails, including a former state arsenal in Brooklyn that had been converted to one of the early self storage locations that are so popular today.

This self storage facility was about a block from the southern end of the 51st Assembly District, and besides eliminating a number of private sector jobs, local residents were aghast that a jail was about to open in their quiet little neighborhood.

I immediately arranged to rent (at my own expense) the auditorium of what was then known as Bay Ridge High School for a neighborhood rally, set for about 10 days down the road. I created and distributed flyers at subway stations, supermarkets, placed posters in local store windows, and mailed an inexpensive post card to a few hundred constituents of mine who lived around the proposed jail site.

Local political and elected officials in both parties helped publicize the jail issue for their own purposes (as did I), and local newspapers promoted my event.

In advance of the rally, I sent an old fashioned Western Union Telegram to Mayor Koch (thinking it would stand out more than a postal letter), inviting him to attend. I had little hope he would come, as the crowd wouldn’t be the friendliest. And sure enough, a few hours before the rally I got a personal phone call from John LoCicero (remember that name), Koch’s chief of staff and closest confidant. He told me the Mayor would not be able to attend, joking about the warm welcome he would have received.

The rally was an amazing success. A crowd of over 1,300 neighborhood residents filled the auditorium and spilled out into the street. And in the days before 24-hour cable television, five different local TV news teams showed up, along with two of the city’s three daily newspapers, and reporters from various radio stations. I welcomed the crowd, introduced Congressman Guy Molinari, a state senator, a couple of assemblymen and councilmen, and various civic leaders and local residents to speak. I made the case against this particular site for a jail. Two TV stations showed a split screen with recorded tape of Mayor Koch on one side, and me live on the other. Not a bad night for a 25 year old political leader.

A week later, I came up with a plan to have a group of neighbors descend on Gracie Mansion, the Mayor’s residence, where we marched around a coffin (with signs that read Jail = Death of Bay Ridge). On cue, my buddy Pat Kinsella, dressed in a striped prison uniform, jumped out of the coffin, holding up a sign that asked, “How’m I doing?” (Koch’s catch phrase). We also presented TV cameras with a six foot long postcard, containing a message from neighbors for Mayor Koch, criticizing the jail plan. This time, Koch came out to greet Congressman Molinari on camera, with me at his side. Despite organizing this and the earlier event, I didn’t actually get introduced to the Mayor (Guy was like that), but with even more coverage across the spectrum on television, radio, and daily newspapers, I didn’t mind. Hell, the Daily News reported the event unfolded with “theatrical flair.”

The very next afternoon, Mayor Koch canceled the proposed Jail at the self storage site. We won.

The day after that was when my buddy asked me to come down to City Hall and photograph his bosses with the Mayor.

We were ushered into the Mayor’s private office, and I blended into the background while I took shots of Al and Ralph sitting with Koch, shaking hands with him, etc. As the photographer, I was there anonymously, and never introduced (nor did I expect to be). But while shooting the photos, I noticed Koch occasionally glancing at me with a puzzled look on his face, not sure where he knew me from.

In less than 15 minutes, the meeting was over, and I followed my clients out the Mayor’s office door. At that instant, John LoCicero, Koch’s chief of staff (whom I had spoken to once, but never met) stepped out of the office adjoining the Mayor’s, nearly colliding with me.

I immediately stuck out my hand, shook his, introduced myself, telling LoCicero that the Mayor made the right call on the Bay Ridge Jail.

LoCicero looked up at me, dumbfounded.

“Huh? Right. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he said, and I walked away. He stood there looking more than a bit confused about how I got in to see the Mayor.

I can only imagine the exchange he and Koch had a minute later.

New Year, Old Mayor

January 2, 2026

Much has been said about New York City’s new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, being a socialist. And so he is. What we should be asking is whether Zohran’s political ideology is a foundation or a ceiling.

Previous Mayors like Fiorello LaGuardia (a pro-FDR Republican endorsed by the Socialist and American Labor Parties) and Ed Koch (a Greenwich Village Reformer who marched against the Vietnam War), had solidly left-of-center views, but their ideology was a foundation: it gave them a philosophical grounding and a basic set of ideals in life and in politics. But they never let it constrain them, and New York was a better place for it.

To other Mayors, like Bill de Blasio, ideology was a ceiling: it boxed them in, limited their view of the city and the world around them, constrained their actions, and diminished their mayoral achievements. New York City suffered because of it.

Here’s hoping the new Mayor follows in the footsteps of Ed Koch (seen above in his City Hall Office in 1983), and Fiorello LaGuardia. Because in New York City, the sky’s the limit.

The View From My Grandparents’ Kitchen Window

November 24, 2025

To celebrate my ten years of daily photography today, I went into the archives for a 1980 image taken in my grandparent’s home in Cape Broyle, Newfoundland. My grandfather built this two story wooden house for his new bride around 1910, but was soon told by the government that a planned railroad track would run right through the middle of the building. So my grandfather, his three brothers, and some neighbors jacked the house up onto logs, and rolled it about 100 feet to where it stood for a century. The Atlantic Ocean can be seen at the bottom of the window frame. This was the view from their kitchen table. I spent many summers there as a boy, looking out this same window.

From The Archives, 1980: Cape Broyle, Newfoundland

July 20, 2025

From The Archives, 1980: View From A Deserted Building

May 25, 2025

From The Archives: Joe Gentili circa 1974

October 27, 2023

I’ve always described Joe as the older brother I never had. He’s gone 15 years today, and I miss his twisted sense of humor and sandpaper-grade personality. The world is a far less interesting place without Joe.

The Buildings May Be Gone

September 11, 2021

September 11th, 2001 was Primary Election Day in New York, and I was nowhere near the Towers that day.

But I worked part time at the World Trade Center on and off for about a year in 1980, as an elevator operator for a security firm that oversaw WTC maintenance.

I ran the 50 car — sub basement 6 to the 108th floor in about 95 seconds. The elevator repair crew performed maintenance on it nearly every week, and claimed its speed would accelerate unless they tweaked it regularly.

They were magnificent buildings. But they can be replaced. Some were.

The people we lost that day can never be replaced.

One was a young man on his second day at work as an assistant engineer at the Towers. We had worked together on a political campaign earlier that year.

Another was the Mom of a dear friend I did not meet until a decade later.

And another was a high school classmate, a captain in the FDNY.

Good people. Gone in an instant.

Their memories will live on, a testament to the impact they had on family, friends, co-workers.

Forever.

From The Archives, 1981: Tom Cuite

June 23, 2021

Tom was your classic old-time pol: a World War II veteran who served in New York’s State Senate, lost a bid for Congress the year I was born, and was rewarded with a seat in the New York City Council. He rose to Finance Committee Chairman, and in 1969, Vice Chair and Majority Leader — today’s equivalent of City Council Speaker. In 1977, I was his 18 year old opponent in the General Election. It wasn’t close. I took this photo of him at the Montauk Club in the summer of 1981.

From The Archives, 1979: Flatbush Avenue Dog

March 8, 2021

From The Archives, 1980: Cape Broyle, Newfoundland

March 5, 2021

From The Archives, 1985: South Dakota Valley

February 26, 2021

From The Archives, 1980: A Shadow Across Prospect Park West

February 22, 2021

From The Archives, 1993: Carpet Kitten

February 20, 2021

From The Archives, 1985: The Badlands

February 19, 2021

From The Archives, 1980: Newfoundland Blockhouse

February 15, 2021

From The Archives, 1983: Mayor Ed Koch

February 8, 2021

From The Archives, 1979: Truck Nap

February 1, 2021

From The Archives, 1980: Portrait of Tom Stewart in SoHo

January 25, 2021

From The Archives, Circa 1980: Lucky Shoes

January 18, 2021

From The Archives, 1981: Urban Dragon

January 11, 2021

From The Archives, Circa 1978: The Flower District

November 25, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Cape Broyle, Newfoundland

November 18, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Cleaning The Catch

November 11, 2020

From The Archives, 1981: County Chairman Vince Albano

November 4, 2020

Fun Fact: Vince was the brother of John Albano, creator of DC Comics’ Jonah Hex.

From The Archives, Circa 1981: Richard Nixon

November 3, 2020

America’s 37th President is now only our second most corrupt Commander-in-Chief of all time, thanks to Donald Trump.

Nixon was many things, but he refused to challenge the election results after his close 1960 loss to John Kennedy, because he knew the damage it would do to our country. And when Barry Goldwater and other old guard, conservative Senators traveled to the White House in 1974 to tell Nixon it was over, he left office peaceably. Trump, on the other hand, has repeatedly refused to say he will honor the results of this election, and has spoken many times about ignoring the constitutional two-term limit.

If you live in the United States and haven’t voted yet, today is your last chance. Perhaps for a long time. VOTE.

From The Archives, 1985: Staring Into The Abyss

October 28, 2020

Photoshop’s New Artificial Intelligence

October 21, 2020

The newest version of Photoshop uses Artificial Intelligence to do a number of absolutely amazing things. Colorizing black & white images is just one of them.

This photo, taken in South Dakota in 1985, took about 3 seconds for Photoshop to colorize.

It’s not perfect, and you can tweak the settings (I’ve left them as is), but out of the box it’s beyond superb, and the coming refinements will perfect it.

From The Archives, 1983: Mayor Ed Koch

October 21, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Bokeh On The Lake

October 18, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Appointment With An Old Friend

October 14, 2020

From The Archives, Circa 1978: You Like Pie?

October 4, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Cape Broyle Dusk

September 26, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Foal And Mare

September 25, 2020

From The Archives, Circa 1979: Moon Over Coney Island

September 19, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: Abandoned In Newfoundland

September 16, 2020

From The Archives, 1980: The Brooklyn Waterfront & Manhattan Skyline

September 11, 2020

From The Archives, Circa 1978: Subway Scenes

September 10, 2020

From The Archives, 1985: Bare Tree In South Dakota

September 9, 2020

From The Archives, Circa 1981: Pressmen

September 2, 2020

I haven’t done much new photography during the pandemic, so I recently started scanning old 35mm slides and negatives from my archives. These photos were taken from the late 1970s through 1996, when I switched to digital cameras. I haven’t seen most of these images since I shot them, decades ago.

These were taken with an Olympus OM-1N camera (https://www.imagingpixel.com/p/olympus-om-1n.html) and a 50mm 1.4 lens. I generally shot Kodachrome 25 and 64, or Plus-X, Tri-X and Agfa Superpan film. Photoshop has enabled me to restore most of the better shots; there are lots of scratches and dust. Some of the slides and negatives need a lot of work.

I don’t miss film at all; digital is easier to use, faster to access your images with, and is much better in low light. Plus, software can mimic any film stock ever made. And don’t get me started on yesterday’s manual focus cameras — Photoshop and high pass sharpening can do only so much when your manual focus was as bad as mine.

I’ll post images From The Archives about once a week while they last. I hope you enjoy them. And I look forward to civilization returning to normal so I can start shooting on a regular basis again.