My family moved us to Staten Island, but my dad worked on Wall Street. And there were times that he would take me to work. And we got on the Staten Island Ferry, which was the way you would travel to Manhattan, and we would come out, and then I would see this Emerald City. I mean, to me, looking at Manhattan, I looked at it through the same eyes as a kid in Kansas looking at a photograph of Manhattan. It was that close to me. But it was also a million miles away in my mind. I, it forever influenced me, and I think that's that was why I became interested in architecture, design.

But when I got out of high school, I was, I was not architecture school material. But I did get accepted - because I had to - to a two-year associate program known as New York City Technical College, which was located just on the back end of The Deuce, Times Square, behind the Port Authority. And that also brought me every day to Manhattan.

It was a tough time. It's, now we're talking about 1978. And New York itself still was, you know, coming off of the, “President Ford to New York City, Drop Dead,” bankruptcy. You know, 77 was the blackout, which was an amazing experience and terrible and with looting. And it was the summer of Sam. I mean, it was, and the city was completely devastated. You know, sanitation was cut. Police were cut.

The the police union would leave fliers out at airports and at train stations and at the Port Authority. And they literally said, “Welcome to Fear City.” And there was all the things not to do. And it was like, don't go out at night, don't ride the subway. So it was really kind of a, as the Talking Heads would like to say, Life During Wartime.