One day last April I took some time off from the Second Avenue Subway drawings (ok, I had lunch first, it was kinda cold out that week). As I sat in my favorite restaurant I got in a quick drawing from within Nicks on the upper east side before heading out to cover what looked like chaos just outside the windows. While I was drawing a woman from some city organization came in to give the happy news that the building was fine, and it was going to be protected a little more, with a work shed installed along the block, much to the dismay of the crew at Nicks. It had been bad enough trying to get to the front door for months, now it was going to be covered up from street view.

When I got outside I found a herd of people, maybe even a mob, not sure which is bigger or relates better to a few dozen hard hats all trying to figure out why a massive rebar structure wasn’t quite going into the ground like they wanted it to. You could see the thing twisting out of shape every time the tried to “push” it a little further. I’ve seen hydraulic leaks and accidents and all sorts of mishaps happen as I have been drawing the scenes on Second, I kind of got the feeling I should do my thing and get out as quickly as I could. As I was finishing up I noticed a mother, one of the I have to teach my child everything types, standing a good ten feet closer than I was, pointing out all the steel to her son. Her son, trying to make noise of some sort (he couldn’t have been more than 18-24 months), kept pointing and grunting, to which his mother responded, “use your words dear.”

Now, maybe it was the audience around the two of them that made me respond, in my head of course, but I figured the response from her son went something like this, “Get me the flock out of here you nut, these people think you are nucking futs,” or something to that affect.