Geoffrey GujaW 73rd St between Riverside Dr and West End AveHeart Three · Location 268 · Drawn June 2003Hover over or select the image to reveal a hidden view.PhotographsDownload photograph 1Download photograph 2Download photograph 3Download photograph 4Download photograph 5Download photograph 6Download photograph 7Download photograph 8Video podcast0:00If you were to travel to 312 West 73rd Street between Riverside Drive and the West End Avenue,0:07you would find a perfectly symmetrical five-story dark brick building.0:12At the bottom of this building is an entrance framed on either side by two white columns0:17supporting a circular balcony above it.0:20To the left of the entrance is a patch of warm, attractive red brick.0:26The drawing was made between two very differently sized and shaped windows with heavy, heavy black metal bars on them.0:36This is Lieutenant Geoffrey Guja. He was drawn in June of 2003. His drawing is counting 10 people.0:46Still rattled, at this location we got to talk to some of the members of the building.0:52Plans were revealed, photos were shown, and intentions were understood.0:56After a quick discussion with the security officer across the street,1:00we were safe to draw at a leisurely pace and discuss the experience at the Islamic Cultural Center.1:06Is there a chance that we stepped over the line?1:09If we used the responses of the people on the street as our standard of measurement,1:14the answer would be a resounding yes.1:16The people who stopped to engage us all shared a similar theme in their rhetoric.1:21fear and misunderstanding. However, they do have the added perspective of having been in the1:26neighborhood during the aftermath of that September and watching the phases of confusion1:32and hatred that have been focused on the Islamic Cultural Center. We are told that the police were1:39paying frequent visits there and that the building had been under occasional attack,1:44but it did not appear that the people who were speaking to us actually had our best interests1:49in mind with their mornings. Those warnings were a means of expressing how they felt.1:56Big and loud, Jeffrey E. Gucha always made sure that life was fun for everyone around him.2:02He built tiki huts for parties at the beach and took his golden retriever Simba with him to bars.2:07He even kept a yellow feather chicken costume in the closet that he donned for special occasions2:12like his daughter's sweet 16 party last month. It always got laughs. He surfed every summer at2:19beach and was so popular there that he was called the mayor. At his funeral last Saturday, his wife2:25arranged for a flower replica of his chicken costume to be laid on his grave. There's nobody2:30else like him, she said. The world is going to be...← Location 267Heart Three · Location 268Location 269 →
