Lately, I’ve been waking up with joy in my heart. Over the past couple months, I received multiple diagnoses: stage 4 prostate cancer, heart failure and kidney failure. My days have been full of doctor visits, surgeries and dialysis, and I’ve never felt more grateful for my life and the people in it.
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My friends have been showing up: in the hospital, with calls, messages and contributions to a GoFundMe they established. And I’ve been sending them photos I’ve taken of them through the years. It’s a beautiful thing, an exchange of love. It’s gotten me through, and gotten me thinking.
Back when I was shooting my “Street Gazing” column for the Daily News, the people who’d turn my eye and I’d photograph appeared for one day in print, and were gone the next. My subjects and readers called me Philly’s own “Bill Cunningham,” comparing me to the late, great, New York Times street style photographer.
Through his decades, Bill had some favorite subjects, and I did too. As I take a break from my regular column, I ‘d like you to meet some of them. They come from the days pre-Covid, when people dressed up to go to the office, out for coffee, or dinner on Rittenhouse Square. And they’ve become my friends.
Eddie Burns
Back in the 90s, when I was working in restaurants and scooping water ice, I was known as “Baby Ralph.” I was a West Philly teenager in the early 90s who loved to wear Ralph Lauren, head-to-toe Polo. When I would go into the Ralph Lauren store, the employees would have clothes waiting for me, and I got to know the staff there.
Eddie Burns worked in the Ralph Lauren store in the Shops at the Bellevue when I did my column. Come to find out he’s from South Philly, and his cousin is basketball legend Donnie Carr. Eddie and I became cool. He’s six-four, a handsome Black man, walking around with velvet Ralph Lauren slippers on, sweaters with embroidery on them — a real style guy who cuts a profile.
Stacey Kracher
Stacey and I became friends 20 years ago, when she was doing PR for the law firm Zarwin Baum DeVito. I decided to shoot her because I wanted people to see what it looked like to be a lady with feminine style that’s still cool in today’s culture. This girl, the only time I saw her wear flats was when she was walking her dog on Saturdays at the Rittenhouse Farmers Market. Otherwise, she was in four- or five-inch Louboutins, coming and going from her Center City apartment. Today, she’s living the mommy life.
Bennett Weinstock
The late interior designer Bennett Weinstock was always ready for my camera, from 20th Street to Broad Street. He’d be dressed in a sport coat with elbow patches, velvet Belgian slippers, and nice frames on. Sometimes, I’d catch him with an ascot. He and his wife Judie — always very proper. When I saw him heading my way, I’d mess with him and say, “Look at the king of the WASPs coming down the street.” Bennett loved that.
Debra Newman
I will never forget when I met Debra Newman. I captured her candidly walking past aka on 18th Street. I saw the pep in her step and got the perfect shot. The next thing you know, she tapped me in front of Barney’s when it was on Walnut. She asked if I remembered her, and I said, “I love your style.” I told her she reminds me of old pictures of my grandmother, how she never went out of the house without gloves, pantyhose, a hat and heels.
Rob Thomas
Rob Thomas was an Army vet who’d been to Vietnam and was an executive for Independence Blue Cross. He drove exotic cars, lived in Cali and Chestnut Hill, and wore the best — a lot of Ralph Lauren, all tailored. He and Freddie Barnett, the former Eagles wide receiver, were great friends. The three of us were at the La Colombe across from City Hall when Fred’s back seized on him, and Rob and I carried him four blocks to his house.
When you’d ask Rob, “What you doing today?” he would put his finger in his mouth, let it hit the wind and say, “Whatever the wind is blowing me.” Rob recently passed away. He was 80. His memorial service had a shrine of all the photos of him from “Street Gazing” — all framed up. It got me tearing up. It was amazing.
West Philly born and raised with a slosh of Brooklyn, Big Rube partnered with Mitchell & Ness in 2000 to help make it a global brand marketing and selling high-end throwback jerseys. He has been photographing Philly since 2009, including in a Daily News Column from 2011 to 2017. He’s also a chef, preparing to open his own space in 2026.
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