Aging In NYC: Photographer Captures Senior Life In the City

I met Joyce as I was walking home on 65th street near Amsterdam Avenue. I was behind her as she was pushing her shopping cart. I could tell even before I met her that she was flamboyant. She was wearing a low-cut blouse with thin straps and sporting a big red hat with a large bow. Although there was no forecast of rain, nor any clouds in the sky, she carried an umbrella. When I stopped her to talk, she was happy to do so.

Joyce had been a movie actress in her younger days. She began to rummage through her shopping cart and took out a photo album. She showed me photos of herself as a much younger woman in a bathing suit. I asked if I would recognize any of the names of the movies she was in, she couldn't recall any.

I asked if she was married. She told me that she had been married, but her husband died many years ago. He was a movie producer and they met while working in Hollywood. When I asked her age, she said: "the doctors tell me that I am 86 years old."

Joyce pointed out that we were standing in front of the building in which she lived. I noticed her shopping cart had no packages, yet she was returning home. I asked her why she had the shopping cart. She said she always takes it with her when she goes out for a walk. With a family album?

As we were talking, one of her neighbors came out of her building a middle-aged woman- who attempted to fix Joyce's strap that had slipped down off her shoulder. Joyce immediately pushed it back down saying she liked it that way.

Slightly odd, very happy and continues getting old and getting out.

Herb Bardavid is a social worker with a passion for photography going back to his childhood years. When he was 12 years old, Bardavid commandeered his family's only bathroom to serve as a part-time dark room for developing photos.

At his wife's suggestion, the Upper West Side resident chose to chronicle the lives of New York City senior citizens for a year-long photography project. Bardavid, who's in his 70s, is inspired by New York City's elders who don't let their age get in the way of how they live their lives.

"Elderly people in New York City are sometimes invisible," Bardavid told Patch. "People walk by and nobody pays attention to them. So when I stop people they're are not only surprised but also happy because people don't often talk to them."

Check out Bardavid's blog here.

Photos by Herb Bardavid