Julian

I was born on the island of Manhattan, to two people who weren't.

My mom came from Venezuela, my dad from Uruguay, both landed at the United Nations, met there, and stayed. I'm the first person in my family born in this country. Growing up in NYC with that kind of family means you're always half here, half somewhere else. Sunday dinners tasted like South America. Everything else was New York.

My grandfather was a bush pilot in Venezuela. An entrepreneur, fearless, the kind of person who made you feel like you could do anything just by being near him. I remember flying with him as a kid. Small plane, big sky, no fear in his hands at all. That's where I got my love of aviation. But more than that, he's the reason I see the world the way I do.

He taught me to look for the quietest person in the room. The one nobody's paying attention to. My family drilled that into me, at the dinner table, in how you treat people, in how you move through the world. I still carry it with everything I do, including the work I do now with Street Service here in New York.

I think about this a lot: every single person walking past me on the sidewalk is living an entire life I'll never see. I'm an extra in their story. They're an extra in mine. It's overwhelming if you actually sit with it, and it's the same reason I believe empathy is the whole game. The person you walk past without noticing could just as easily be you, in a different life, on a different continent, or a few blocks over in a different circumstance.

That's what Street Service is about, to me. Remembering that the person on the sidewalk isn't background noise. They're someone's whole life, same as you. Please support and follow @StreetServiceNY

— Julian