Rogue Rite of Spring

Two anonymous climbers take to the sky on the Upper West Side.

- Matthew Sedacca

JEFF FRENCH SEGALL was in his apartment on West 90th Street the evening of March 17, a Monday, when his wife, Ricki, called for him to look out their 27th-story window. On top of the dual towers of El Dorado, a nearly century-old Art Deco apartment complex, almost 400 feet in the air, were two men—each balancing on one of the slender ziggurat peaks. Segall, 82, a retired language teacher and self-described semi-professional photographer, began to shoot with his Nikon D850, capturing a pink-hued sky and the climbers in various forms of balance and repose—back arched over a spire, standing pencil straight, peering down—while recording themselves via selfie stick. The West Side Rag ran a selection of Segall’s photos the following morning. The beauty