Reminding Us Why Gotham Is Great

The cure for modern urban anomie isn’t state-mandated wellness initiatives, CBD gummies or Instagram obsession: It’s basic human connection, powered by creativity and courage — like Brooklyn artist Rusty Zimmerman’s portraiture of his borough.

After moving from Crown Heights to Kensington, he made it his mission to record the faces of his fellow Brooklynites and so foster a sense of real community. Just what this town (and America as a whole) needs more of.

He trawls the borough for willing subjects, putting up flyers on bike rides and eventually building a waitlist of 650 eager would-be participants. Every painting session began with a conversational “How are you?”

In a city still recovering from the enforced loneliness of the COVID regime, when many focus more on digital life than the real thing, this project might seem quixotic. But the response shows it’s anything but.

With public exhibitions that his models attended, Zimmerman introduced his art to the wider world and the subjects to each other and their neighbors.

By immortalizing figures from a cult-fave Coney Island MC to an MTA driver with dreams of making it big as a handbag designer, he’s shown that the Big Apple remains a vital, exciting city filled with endless human diversity and passion.

So, New Yorkers (especially younger ones): Put your phones down. Go out and actually do something. You live in the most exciting city in the world.

Let us all be deeply grateful for the magnificent oddballs like Rusty Zimmerman and his subjects who make it that way.