Joel Meyerowitz captures a fleeting moment of intimacy against the mechanized pulse of Manhattan, where a couple embraces beneath a theater marquee that almost mockingly commands: Kiss Me, Stupid. In this black and white print, the vitality of street photography unfolds—accident and intention merging into something like fate.

The marquee advertising Billy Wilder’s film becomes an unseen narrator, its quotation marks urging the drama below. Whether the couple noticed this cosmic directive or simply acted on pure impulse remains unknown, but Meyerowitz’s perspective frames their kiss as both a private gesture and public spectacle. The glow of theater lights transforms the sidewalk into a stage, with pedestrians drifting past—some glancing, others oblivious—while New Year’s Eve energy pulses through the scene.

Created during Meyerowitz’s early New York years in the mid-1960s, this photograph embodies the street sensibility he honed after his encounter with Robert Frank, which shifted him from ad director to photographer. The couple’s sculptural pose and the tonal contrast anchor the composition, providing stillness amid the motion-blurred city crowds.

This image is more than documentation; it’s layered with irony and tenderness. The imperative of the marquee pairs humor with genuine affection. Meyerowitz aimed to turn “the humble everyday gesture into the sublime,” and this moment—a universal New Year’s kiss—becomes both ordinary and eternal in his frame.

Photography, for Meyerowitz, connects disparate elements: commercial signage, celebration, romance, and urban anonymity merge to illustrate how personal connections pierce the city’s anonymity. Though he would later gain fame for color street work, this image reveals his mastery of tonal nuance and narrative brevity.

Decades on, the photograph conjures a vanished New York, where encounters were spontaneous, not curated by smartphones. Yet the essential human need for physical connection endures, a reminder that being present and observant brings those rare instants when everything aligns perfectly.