We see in this late 1950’s Diane Arbus photo the juxtaposition of a child standing up amongst the crowd. As a student living in Manhattan, I have experienced unsettling feeling of being a mere individual walking a busy street with tens of thousands of city dwellers. The crowds form an uninterrupted stream with more stories in a single day than I can contemplate in a lifetime. I feel challenged as a viewer to grasp my own role amongst the chaos while paradoxically understanding that I am a tiny piece of a super organism. When walking through the busiest hubs in the city such as Grand Central or Times Square it is difficult not to be amazed and frightened by my own scale in the city. Looking at this picture, one cannot miss the distinction between the single boy and the communal crowd. Personally I notice a sense of isolation walking through these crowds as the sheer volume of people passing by gives them all a dehumanized characteristic. Unable to give each face more than a split second glance, likely never to be seen again, I find it difficult to keep in mind that these people live just as sophisticated a life as I do. To me, the eye contact with the boy forces his acknowledgment for the instant.