One of the many annoyances of living in NYC is that a production shoot will frequently interrupt your daily routine. Today was a freezing cold, windy and rainy day, but for some reason, everybody was shooting in Greenpoint. Some project had trailers parked all up and down Driggs Ave., but I didn’t see anyone out in the weather, other than a few workers taping down wires. Then, there was a commercial shooting at the track. A little tent had been erected next to the track, and about ten people and all their equipment huddled under it. A guy dressed like a referee stood out on the track opposite four muscular dudes in summer running gear, who posed squatted down as if about to race. They must have been freezing. An aide with a showy sense of urgency stopped me and requested I run around behind the tent, so as not to mess up their shot, so I had to squelch through the mud, dodging trees and benches, every time I did a lap.
Exiting the food court adjacent to the Lex & 53rd subway station, an Indian guy in some sort of food industry uniform chased two Hispanic guys who both wore a different restaurant’s uniform. ‘Mexico, Mexico, everybody from Mexico!’ the Indian guy was saying, while the two other guys rolled their eyes at each other, and clearly tried to out-walk him. ‘I love tacos! But I am just not [unintelligible]. Seriously, Mexico is a beautiful country, a gorgeous country.’
On Park Avenue, a car failed to go promptly at a green light, causing several cars to lay on their horns for a good long while, which in turn interrupted the phone conversation of a thin blond woman whose tweed pencil skirt met her black leather boots in a perfect horizontal line across her kneecaps. ‘It’s just so loud here,’ she screamed into the phone. ‘It is just too loud, I mean. This whole city, I don’t – this city is so…loud, and I really, I feel sorry for people who have to…’
