The Way We Were: New York

I came to New York City in the summer of 1991 with little more than a suitcase and a vague plan for an extended visit. A reconnaissance visit a few months before had settled New York as the place to be, but after many years of living happily in Kyoto and Osaka, New York City was a bit of a culture shock. The subways did not have schedules (How could this be?). Many of the public pay phones didn’t work. The streets seemed way too wide. All the electronics people used were very antiquated.

All the electronics people used were very antiquated.

As a member of a highly adaptable species, however, these impressions were soon replaced in my mind by a sense of familiarity and eventually affection.

As I walked up Madison Avenue late this afternoon, I was reminded of living in New York City in the early 1990s.

Nostalgia for 1991

I was hailed from the middle of the street by a well-dressed man hanging from a white Lexus SUV. I answered his summons and gave him directions to JFK. Speaking to me half in Italian, half in English, he explained he worked for Armani and gave me his business card.

He then proceeded to explain, as best he could, that he was my friend and that he had a fabulous deal for me (presumably because I was his friend). For tax reasons he had to give away three men’s leather jackets—a quick application of butane fire from his lighter demonstrated they were genuine—if only I would buy one women’s leather jacket that he also had to get rid of. He was certain my wife would love it. (He had her pegged.) “All for free. Except I need $600 dollars for the women’s jacket.”

He showed me his passport and matched it to his smooth Armani business card (with only his first name on it). Not having $600 in cash burning a hole in my pocket to buy four leather jackets that I did not need or particularly like (and that, if I had ever brought them home, would have certainly resulted in hours of painful excoriation), I turned him down, politely, and completed my journey back to the office on 49th.

All for free. Except I need $600 dollars for the women’s jacket.

As I came back out of the office to go home an hour or so later, the police were hitching up a white Lexus SUV suspiciously similar to the one I had just seen piloted by a dapper Italian stranger-friend.

All this brought back a tinge of nostalgia for the days of a rougher-round-the-edges New York that I thought we’d never see again. Maybe it’s back, wakening from a gentle nap.

Author’s note (2025)

Inspired by a day-in-the-life experience I had on Madison Avenue near the then little branding agency that could, Tronvig, with its tiny team working out of a rather too nice sixth floor office on Madison and 49th street, I launchd this blog with some arguably directionless posts on the principle of “learn by doing.”

Reading it now after 15 years, I find it endearing—and even though Google wants me to delete things like this: things that have nothing to do the branding or management consulting or organizational alignment—Google be damned.

I started the Tronvig blog without much photography to support it, so as I clean up some of the old posts, I’ll take the opportunity to update the photographs…This pixelated New York Icon is from an early digital camera and was taken in June 2013, though it looks like winter to match the blog. At that point I am twelve years in New York City. Perhaps I should dig into my photo film archives to get genuinely contemporaneous imagery…

Photo by the author