Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 212

“You should have been here a few minutes ago. The kids...

“You should have been here a few minutes ago. The kids were crying from the cold. It would have been a perfect Save The Rhinos advertisement.”

“Everyone chose their own costume.”“Except...

“Everyone chose their own costume.”

“Except for Daddy. Daddy has no choice.”

“I’m an ‘es-ka-vader!”

“I’m an ‘es-ka-vader!”

Today in microfashion…

Today in microfashion…

“I came all the way from Wisconsin for a costume...

“I came all the way from Wisconsin for a costume contest. I got beat by an eleven year old Grim Reaper.”

“The man was eventually convicted, but he fled the country...

“The man was eventually convicted, but he fled the country before his sentencing and went back to Italy. My father never got the gold bar back. He lost more than the money. The gold represented all of his struggles. When he first came from Ecuador, he worked in the back of a restaurant cutting onions. Then he became the manager of a bar downtown. Then he became one of the best store managers that Party City ever had. Eventually he bought his cousin’s jewelry business because he wanted to work for himself. When he saved up enough money to buy the gold bar, he kept telling us that he was going to pay for my college with it, and my brother’s college, and that he was also going to buy a house in Ecuador. When the gold was stolen, he couldn’t sleep for weeks. He got really depressed. I tried to tell him that it was only money, and that I’d figure out a way to take care of the family, but it didn’t seem to comfort him. I’m at Rutgers now, studying finance. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I want to figure something out quick so my dad can retire.” (3/3)

“I drove over an hour to the meeting place, and I set the bar...

“I drove over an hour to the meeting place, and I set the bar of gold on the table while we talked. I felt a weird energy right away. There were three men. They were Italian. One of them was constantly puffing on one of those e-cigarettes, and could not stop pacing around the room. Another guy was doing all the talking. He was very animated, and talked with his hands, and had a ponytail. He kept telling jokes. He wrote us a check for $265,000, but he told us not to cash it, because in 24 hours he was going to bring the full amount in cash. But the next day he never called. My father started sweating and turned pale. He kept calling the man’s phone, but he never answered. Finally my father called the police to file a report. The police said: ‘Yesterday this man filed a complaint against you for selling him fake gold.’” (2/3)

“My dad owns a shop where he buys and sells gold. He has dual...

“My dad owns a shop where he buys and sells gold. He has dual citizenship in the US and Ecuador, so sometimes he’s able to buy gold straight from the mines in Ecuador for cheaper than he can get in New York. A few years ago he was given a very good opportunity to buy cheap gold, so he put all his savings into a bar that weighed over 2.5 kilograms. It was worth about $200,000. Not long after he bought it, the price of gold took a sharp fall. My father called me from the store one day, and told me that he’d found a man who was going to buy the gold for last week’s price. He wanted me to get the bar from his bedroom and bring it to him. I was just twenty years old at the time, but I told my dad that it didn’t sound right, and I didn’t think we should be greedy for a few more thousand dollars. But he told me that he’d been talking to the guy for a few weeks now, and that there was nothing to worry about.” (1/3)

“I’m keeping an eye out for my ex-roommate. He got...

“I’m keeping an eye out for my ex-roommate. He got drunk, destroyed the apartment, then ran out the side door when I called the cops. So when the police arrived, I was standing in the middle of a destroyed apartment, looking like a crazy man.”

“I wish I had more backbone. We’ve been dating five years, and...

“I wish I had more backbone. We’ve been dating five years, and he seems more willing to walk away, so he has all the power. Whenever I question something he does, he says: ‘Then maybe we shouldn’t be together.’ I can never bring myself to say the same thing to him. So if he does something that bothers me, I think: ‘I can stand it.’ But if I do something that bothers him, he says: ‘I’m not going to tolerate it.’”