Ray Hu

SOHO — No one I spoke to had heard of him, though googling eventually turned up a website with a Wayback Machine-via-Wix aesthetic that doubles as an archive.

FIDI — I had assumed that the hip kids flocking to the slightly dour office building on a Sunday night would all be going to the same destination, but what did I know? “That’s why you shouldn’t just follow people,” my friend said to me.

RED HOOK — “If we have burning questions that we want to ask, we’re going to put them in the ‘Ideas Bin,’” she said.

Gowanus — “It’s up to us to say, ‘This is what a community trying to make a change looks like.’”

Sutton Place — Sporting tan tennis shoes, the architecture critic shared more neighborhood lore, pointing out I.M. Pei’s former residence, as well as Andrew Bolton and Thom Browne’s manse.

East River — Here we were, two strangers standing a few feet apart on the Brooklyn Heights Promenade, taking in a classic New York moment.

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN — An unusual union of a high-rise residential tower and a mid-rise school rises over Flatbush Avenue.