Manhattan, NY – Maybe it was relief that New York was recovering from last week’s blizzard or elation that the holidays had come to an end. Whatever — Fred R. Conrad’s picture of a balloon deliverer on a subway platform in Lower Manhattan perfectly captured the sense of the moment in the city and earned itself a berth on the front page of The Times.
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How does a veteran like Mr. Conrad manage to find such a photogenic tableau?
Simple: by getting on the wrong train.
On Monday, his first day back at work after the holiday, Mr. Conrad was heading to one assignment (a diner in Brooklyn) from another (a 4-by-5 portrait of a Manhattan chef). Perhaps not every subway synapse was firing, because he boarded a No. 1 train. The No. 1 doesn’t go to Brooklyn. In fact, it doesn’t go any farther toward Brooklyn than the tip of Manhattan Island. So Mr. Conrad had to double back to Chambers Street to pick up a No. 2 train, muttering all the while, “How long have I lived here?”
He was seated dejectedly on a bench, surrounded by the cumbersome equipment he’d needed for the earlier portrait session, when the deliverer came down the steps of a parallel platform and stopped obligingly, right across the tracks.
“Thank you,” Mr. Conrad whispered, as he pulled out a digital camera that just happened to have the right lens already on it. (A woman sitting next to him was inspired. “That looks camera-worthy to me, too,” she said, as she took a picture with her cellphone.)
Now, good luck on the job does not necessarily translate to good luck on the subway. “Sitting there looking at the frames I shot,” Mr. Conrad said, “I missed my train.”
what a slow news day can do. the times puts balloons an the hamodia a cheider with a reebe.
I enjoy seeing the balloon deliverers when I am in Chambers St.