‘Times Square’ Articles at j’accuse

On our first walkabout in NY still fresh from the transatlantic flight led us straight to the glimmering lights of Times Square at around four in the afternoon. The sun was out in all its splendour and the square was readying for an invasion of the “Beautiful Game” with many of the lit screens and panels illuminated with details of forthcoming matches and other details of the football festival. We walked gently to what we thought would be the central point of the square and then just stood back and took it all in. The long queues of crowds searching for the bargain Broadway tickets criss-crossed trigger happy tourists capturing this or that moment on SLRs.

A makeshift football stand had been set up in the middle of the square and when you climbed to the top you could absorb all the atmosphere around you from a bird’s eye view. Just before going up the temporary structure we came across a wedding photoshoot. Bride and groom in full wedding regalia were posing against the magnificent metropolitan backdrop when all of a sudden they were joined by an unusual character. A promoter of the Cage aux Folles spectacle had pranced onto the “stage” intent on getting his photo moment with the happy couple while promoting his spectacle. I caught two great shots of the next few moments and had been playing around with them with the new photoshopping program (Lightroom) when I came across this news item.

Apparently one of the two protagonists of an historic snapshot taken in Times Square on 14th August 1945 had just passed away. The photo snapped by Alfred Eisenstaed pictures a sailor embracing and kissing a lovely damsel right in the middle of New York’s most famous crossroads. Edith Shain, the damsel in question, passed away last Sunday aged 91. I found the similarities between my two treasured shots and the context of this historic photo curiously coincidental. Go figure.