Invisibility

"I was free to observe the city, uninhibited because no one was observing me. I'd been slow to appreciate the invisibility New York grants. No one cares what you do, and that's a good thing."
Anna Pitoniak, The Futures

Diorama

"We all endured the same things: shoe-box apartments, crowded subways, overpriced groceries, indifferent bosses. What kept everyone going was the dream: store windows on Madison Avenue, brownstones lit golden in the night, town cars gliding across the park. Imagining what it would be like when you got there, someday. Manhattan was like a dazzling life-size diorama. A motivation to work harder, stay later, wake earlier."
Anna Pitoniak, The Futures