Santa Claus Having Lunch, Manhattan, New York, USA, 1963
(catalog number 102C-011-19A)

I TOOK this photograph when I was in graduate school. A great photographer, Bruce Davidson, had come to the Annenberg School to teach a workshop. We were each told to choose a project. It was Christmastime, and I chose to photograph Santa Claus. I took the train to New York and spent the night at an old hotel where the Volunteers of America housed their Santa Clauses each season.

Early the next morning, I had breakfast with many Santas and later followed several of them who were stationed in the Brooklyn area. This particular Santa was on his lunch break. He had a cigarette, of course. In 1963 everybody smoked--even Santa Claus.