Day 1

 My goal of walking 8.3 miles yesterday was wildly optimistic and over-ambitious! I walked a little under 5 miles before my body said, “Enough!” A lesson learned, I will be more careful in my plans for the rest of the trip — damn, getting older sucks!

 Okay, that is enough exclamation points. It is time to go over yesterday's events. It was an easy subway ride to Brooklyn to visit the Brooklyn Film Camera store. It is a small shop that specializes in Polaroid cameras and film. While they offer some non-Polaroid film cameras and film, 80% of the store was Polaroid products. In addition to the new products, they offer used refurbished SX-70 model cameras — the refurbishing of SX-70 model cameras is probably their primary business. If you have an old Polaroid SX-70 camera lying around or find a used one at a flea market or perhaps on eBay, you should look at their refurbishing services — Brooklyn Film Camera.

It turned out that my SX-70 was fully functional, which was surprising based on its external condition. So, I dropped it off for a CLA (clean, lubricate and adjust). Then I jumped back on the subway to the city, got off at the 1st Avenue stop, and walked to East Village Book Store. The store was a small, typical used bookstore with a good selection of photography-related books, including one I have been looking to find for some time — Saul Leiter by Francois Halyard. It was in excellent condition, and I may go back one more time to look at it and consider purchasing it — as I wrote earlier, I have been looking for this book for some time.

 One thing I had not considered in my planning was the number of people that would be out and about on a partially sunny early spring day in the city, plus it was a Sunday. A few days in some regions of the city are free of crowds, many, if not most, are tourists. Still, yesterday, it seemed like everyone was out walking, having coffee or lunch at cafes with outdoor seating, and shopping at various locations — including the Strand Bookstore, my next stop. The store was so crowded that I turned around and got out of the crush of humanity.

 My plan was to visit the Rizolli Bookstore next, but I knew it would be as crowded as the Strand, so I moved on. I walked by the apartment building where Saul Leiter had lived for 61 years—there was a small plaque by the entrance.

From there I started walking up Broadway north towards the apartment. If I had been able to walk the whole way, I would have walked just over 8 miles. I made it to Columbus Circle at the south end of Central Park. I had walked 5 miles and reached my limit, so I jumped on the A train (subway) and returned to the apartment just after 4 pm. I washed up and headed out for a short walk to Fort Tryon Park, where I made the best image of the day, and then to the grocery store for the makings of dinner.