A few weeks ago, I stopped by the New York City home of an old high school friend. We’d hung out numerous times since school but it was the first time I’d ever been to his place.
“Text when you’re on my block,” he wrote in an email, “I’ve got a speak easy side entrance to my place so you don’t have to go through the lobby.
I texted. Waited a beat. His voice called from a short distance “yo, dude, over here!” his head popping out of what I originally had thought were three mirrors on the side of the brick building front.
As I walked through the mirrored entrance I told him that I never would have imagined it was anything more than a decorative part of the framework. He said I wasn’t the only person who thought that same thing. In fact, hundreds of people a day mistake the access to his living room for a complimentary mirror to do all kinds of “personal upkeep.”
For safety reasons, he’s installed a video camera to watch the front door. Those hours of footage have caught more than a few New Yorkers at their worst while trying to look their best. He bestowed upon me the best stuff he could find on his hard drive (most had to be scrapped because of storage space). I felt the material needed its own mash-up.
Bros and babes, presenting the people of New York who think they’re looking into a mirror when they’re actually staring right into a guy’s living room.