The Painter.

Date: 1982
Place: Broadway on Manhattan’s Upper West Side
Modus operandi: More intent on grocery shoppng than photography.
Weather: Outdoors overcast.
Time: 3pm
Gear: Leica M3, 50mm Summicron
Medium: Kodachrome 64.
Me: Looking forward to the smell of all those cheeses at Zabar’s.
My age: 31

The Story: Few who are familiar with New York City’s west side would deny that amongst the greatest cultural attractions to be found there are the Julliard, Carnegie Hall, and the Carnegie Deli. And let’s not forget the greatest deli grocery store in the world, Zabar’s, up the road a few blocks on Broadway.

Now Broadway holds many precious memories, not least of them being this snap.

Once, lazily catching a Broadway bus rather than walk the few blocks home from 80th Street to 56th and Eighth, I sat transfixed opposite none other than the gorgeous Lauren Hutton, and found myself getting out on the opposite side of town, having missed my stop. On that same Broadway I lost my seemingly nuclear war-proof doorman’s umbrella, double struts and all, in a blast of wind when coming out of the Met with my mum in 1986. The umbrella died magnificently, sacrificing itself under a massive Checker cab. Every Thanksgiving you would have found me during the years 1980-86, cheering the Macy’s Parade on Broadway. And every winter, there I was on Broadway at Columbus Circle, watching the marathoners come home.

Now Zabar’s is far more than a European grocery store. It’s a place to meet, to argue, to debate. Art, politics, food, music, ballet, it makes no matter. A place where I sometimes went to gaze at the arcane cooking instruments, trying to work out their uses. A sure cure for depression. Add a pumpernickel bread my Polish forbears would have died for and a selection of coffees unparalleled in the Western hemisphere, and you have a special place.

So intent was I that Autumn day to get my provisions that I shot right by this amusing scene. Nothing gets between a hungry polack and his food. My mind’s eye caught this little piece of drama, however, and a few seconds later, disregarding the urgent messages from my tummy, I was retracing my steps. The tableau was still to be had!

After that, I was on autopilot.