A Face in the Crowd
August 23, 2019
Turns out my father, Irwin Rosen, is in the above photo.
Several weeks ago, in a blog titled "10/15/64," I wrote about the photo, shot on on Church Avenue, between East 17th and East 18th Streets, in Brooklyn. I said the most remarkable thing about it is not that President Lyndon Johnson and Robert Kennedy are riding in an open limousine less than a year after Dallas. Rather, it's the best picture I have of my father's candy store.
I also mentioned that I'd been unable to find the photographer. Well, I've continued searching, and though I still haven't found him or her, yesterday, on a site called "All the Way with LBJ," I found a photo that was higher resolution than the one I used on the blog. When I enlarged it, I saw something that I'd never noticed: my father.
His candy store is on the left, in the middle of the block, to the left of the entrance to the BMT subway station. To the right of what appears to be the open door of the candy store, you can see somebody leaning out the store window, higher than the rest of the crowd. His hair is black, and he's wearing sunglasses, a white top, and possibly a light blue jacket over the white top.
That face in the crowd belongs to my father.