When people ask me where I’m from I’ve started saying “the Amtrak Northeast Regional.” And if that gets a laugh then I tag it with “Train 154.”

This Fall brought me to Newark, New Jersey, where I walked through Branch Brook Park nearly every day for a couple months during my fellowship at NJIT. Walking is the photographer’s secret weapon and so I moved and saw and snapped many times over.

There are six East Coast cities where I’ve lived for at least a couple months, most of those for a year or more:

Washington, DC – 10+ years
Baltimore, MD – a couple months
Newark, NJ – one semester, going on two
New York, NY – 15 years
Providence, RI – 4 years of college
Boston, MA – 10+ years

That doesn’t count the large number of times I’ve visited Philly, the many nights out carousing in Wilmington, countless beach trips to New Jersey, and at least a few nights in various cities in Connecticut. Demographers have given this entire region, which doubles as the spine of my life, a name worthy of its expanse — the Northeast megalopolis.

Unarmed is doing a big project called We. It’s been fun to use those walks as an excuse to launch it. More than that, it’s been fun to see another great East Coast city in all its colors.