Hello! My name is Max Ferrandino, and I attended your Please Hold film screening yesterday evening. I had a few questions about the film, but I didn’t have them formulated yesterday, and I wanted to sit with it before I asked them.
First, a comment on the Please Hold lettering. I really appreciated that you used the same font and colors as the Delancey St. escalator. When I used to live in Brooklyn and wanted to go out in Manhattan, I would often take the J or M train to Delancey St. and ride the escalator up into the world from the platform. It just really resonated with me, and I appreciate that you used it as the title of your film.
Apologies for the long aside, I just really connected with the title. My first question is about framing, specifically on the staircases at your apartment on Attorney St. In the video with Jim, where you climb the stairs, you show a shot of the balustrades that seem to snake up forever. However, in the later video, you show yourself climbing the stairs up to your old apartment, where the steps are made out of stone rather than wood. My question is, how did you feel climbing the steps more recently? It is still six floors, but so much has changed since the time you lived there. The stairs themselves were different, so did you have a different experience?
AJ (Nov 13, email reply): The stairs are the same. The walls have been painted and I think the floors covered somehow. These changes are cosmetic. They feel like cheap and artificial gestures to make people from a different class than were its previous residents feel like the building is appropriate for them. My feelings about the climb are hard to remember now, and feelings aren’t held in video, are they? But I did that walk before I ever thought of making this video. I did that walk for the charge, the electric bolt of memory it might inspire. To feel. For something to come back. I taped it because I wanted to mark it and save it. It wasn’t for anything … yet.
Secondly, I was really struck by the moment when you saw the plant shop that may have been an auto repair place. The store before the plant shop was still an auto repair shop, presumably similar to the shops that were on your street during the time you lived there. Was that your first time seeing the flower shop, and do you remember what was there when you lived on that street?
AJ (Nov 13, email reply): That is not a plant shop, it is an expensive apartment with a plant front window display. It was an auto repair shop or perhaps that place they built sets. It reeks of money and bad expensive generic cheap taste to me, like what happened to the stairs. I artifically put a little CHRISTEENE music coming from the window to give it a pop to add to my dismay about gentrification and change.;
Thirdly, I was also struck by the videos on Roosevelt Island when you were walking towards Juanita and Henry, and the regularity of the people around you. In both videos, you see people running or walking by on a day out in the park. I could easily see myself as one of those people who walked by, as I did a lot of walking around New York City in February 2024, because I was new in NYC and didn’t really have any friends or a job in the city. I was wondering how you felt, in those videos or after those videos, when walking towards Juanita and Henry or back to the F train.
AJ (Nov 13, by email): When I walked to and from Coler I felt sad. It’s a hard place to live (a NY city run Rehab Center), and it was way worse during COVID (it’s really pretty okay now, considering everything). That’s why Juanita stopped receiving treatment. Her care was compromised by lack of staffing during the pandemic. We all know how bad it was for anyone in nursing care … I was also scared of catching COVID. I was also shooting a video (and talking in real time), so I was focused on that but also in a sort of zen like flow. If you look at the dates you can see that I did this walk quite awhile after the walk to the Parkside, something I shot just to shoot it (like the stairs), for myself. When I started making this video, I looked at those images and began to construct the piece with them. The walk to the Parkside became a holder for everything else. But I realized the piece was too Jim heavy (I repeated the Parkside walk 5 times in earlier versions) and so I shot a walk to Henry as a holder for Juanita’s story. By this time, I also knew what the tape would be, so my extemporaneous talking is focused on the project and raises themes that came from making this video.Hope these thoughts are useful. I wrote them quickly. I’m about to address a class at Yale who have also written me similar and different questions. I thank you for your interest! Does this bring up anything more for you?
Some brief thoughts on your answers: November 19, 2025
The first one makes a lot of sense. I’m sure that’s what happened with my old apartment building; the steps were quite similar to the ones you climbed much later. I also often walk to see if ideas spark or resonate for me. I’ve always found my best ideas while doing something other than my work.
On the second point, it’s disappointing to see the plants used that way; they seemed incredibly manicured, which is why I thought it might be a plant shop.
The final point is tragic, and an indictment of the American healthcare system, which was probably particularly overburdened during COVID, but does not seem to function well even before/after (if there is an after) COVID. Perhaps it is naive of me to say that no one should die because they weren’t receiving proper care. This is the point that really brings something up in me because my paternal grandmother was also in a nursing home during COVID from Alzheimer’s, which is a tragic way to go, but must’ve been so much worse in a (potentially) understaffed and strange place. She would often call my father to ask him to pick her up. [small section redacted on Max’s request] When you asked us to give some grief to our neighbor in the room, this is what I gave them, without the part about my father’s anger, because I wasn’t really grieving that, I was just really disappointed in him, which is a different emotion than grief.
Sorry for the delay in my reply. I’m happy to have my questions published on your website, except for the comment about my father. If it were anonymized or if I could re-work it somehow, I’d probably be ok with it.
