1979, Central Park, New York City

Alicia, one of my neighbors from when I lived on E. 83rd Street in Manhattan, appears to give me the stink-eye. She had her head turned to her right, in profile to the camera, and that's what I intended to photograph, but at the moment my shutter clicked, she turned back towards me and squinted in the afternoon sun.

It was a pleasant Spring weekend afternoon, and Alicia and I decided to walk the few blocks west to Central Park for some photography. Here we stopped at "Cleopatra's Needle," the 3450-year-old Egyptian obelisk near the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In those pre-Giuliani/Bloomberg days, graffitist felt free to deface anything, even an ancient relic like this one, and once attacked, it would remain that way - or worse - from then on. Most of the landmarks in the Park suffered a similar fate and were in various states of decrepitude.

Thanks to the non-profit Central Park Conservancy and better law enforcement, the Park looks amazing, and we haven't seen this kind of vandalism in more than two decades. View full size.