On our trips to the Numbered Streets, I would tape an interview with residents who wanted to participate in Cocoon and then they would pose for a portrait — we lined part of the procession route with large black-and-white prints. Many people shared their family photographs, which Eric photographed, some of which were hung inside the Cocoon.
Some of these were formal portraits of parents or grandparents or themselves, from much earlier times, or more recent portraits of children and grandchildren sent back home from far away. Others were snapshots of themselves and family and friends, many of happier, safer times in the Numbered Streets, when work was easily had in the steel plants, and their apartment leases weren’t threatened by city officials.