Ruth Bader Ginsburg's collars, captured on camera

Good morning. It is Friday. We look at an exhibit of photos of the collars worn by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. We'll also look at a Manhattan Democrat whose City Hall hopes were dashed in 2021, but who is now exploring whether to challenge Mayor Eric Adams in 2025.

In the soft silence of a museum hall you might forget that the photos on the walls around you were taken under time pressure.

Six minutes every, photographer Elinor Carucci told me.

The pictureson display at the Jewish Museum in Manhattan are haunting, almost three-dimensional depictions of collars and necklaces that belonged to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

They stamped her personality in the public consciousness, making her recognizable outside the court, so much so that the first poster for the film “RBG” showed nothing but a collar with the title.

But Ginsburg's collars weren't just about looks. They conveyed meaning – without words – in a way that fashion accessories usually don't.

Ginsburg had a “majority collar” that she wore when she expressed opinions that became the law of the land.

She also had a dissent collar, in case the mood among the judges had not gone her way wore that collar the day after Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election – when no decisions were announced by the court.

And there was a “court” she wore during her final term on the bench – and when she lay in state after her death in September 2020.

Carucci was stunned when she heard Ginsburg had died. In “The Collars of RBG: A Portrait of Justice,” a book written with Sara Bader and published last year, Carucci wrote that the news came while she was with an aunt in Kew Gardens, Queens, and that her teenage daughter “cried with the F train all the way from Queens' home base to Manhattan.

Carucci wrote that Time magazine's assignment to photograph the collars “required still life photography, not my specialty.” She told me she felt most comfortable photographing people – “people crying, people fighting.”

But she couldn't turn down an assignment she called “the equivalent of documenting a superhero's costume.” So she started preparing for the shoot in Washington, with her husband, Eran Bendheim, accompanying her.

Based on the time allotted by the Supreme Court, “we knew we would have six minutes per collar,” she told me. “By the time you take the collar off, it's not much.” She took test photos with a collar she made from paper towels, thinking it would be about the same color as the white collars in Ginsburg's collection.

She and her husband then went to the Supreme Court. They were checked by guards and sniffed by security dogs. This also applied to her camera equipment. “That is very different from photo shoots that I am used to,” she says.

Once they got her strobes set up and the closet with the collars wheeled in, one collar almost stopped her.

It was embroidered with a quote from Ginsburg's husband Martin: “It's not sacrifice, it's family.” (Martin Ginsburg had moved to the capital when she became a federal judge in 1980, leaving behind his career as a lawyer and law school professor in New York.) His citation came thirteen years later, when she was nominated to the High Council. Court, and was preceded by: 'I have supported my wife since the beginning of time, and she has supported me too.' That part of the quote didn't make the collar.

“I started crying,” Carucci said. “My husband said, 'Control yourself. Stop crying. We have four minutes left and you're crying. Four minutes. No crying.'”

She said the collar was ordered for the judge's 85th birthday and was made by New York fashion house MM LaFleur. “I think they went to the Supreme Court twice for fittings,” she said. “It's complex and multi-layered, and on the back is the quote when they asked him about moving from New York to Washington. He talked about getting things done. That was where I cried. It had so much meaning.”

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The latest Metro news

Scott Stringer, a former New York City comptroller and 2021 mayoral candidate, is gearing up to defeat Eric Adams in 2025.

Stringer became the first Democrat to announce a move to challenge Adams, saying he was forming an exploratory committee and raising money for a possible primary next year.

History is not on Stringer's side: No challenger has defeated an incumbent mayor in a primary since David Dinkins defeated Edward Koch in 1989.

But as our colleague Nicholas Fandos notes, few of Adams' predecessors have had such low poll numbers. His approval rating was just 28 percent in a Quinnipiac University poll last month, the lowest of any New York City mayor since Quinnipiac began surveying the city in 1996. Adams also faces budget uncertainty amid the city's migrant crisis, and the FBI is conducting a broad criminal investigation into whether his 2021 campaign accepted illegal donations.

“Let's face it: Things aren't getting done,” Stringer said, referring to the mayor's “get things done” mantra. “I know how to lead. I know how to manage. And I know the city's finances like the back of my hand.”

Stringer, who served as comptroller from 2014 to 2021 after two terms as Manhattan borough president, will have his own baggage to contend with. His bid for mayor in 2021 imploded after a longtime aide accused him of groping her and pressuring her to have sex when he ran for public advocacy in the early 2000s.

Stringer denied wrongdoing and later sued the woman, Jean Kim, for defamation. He received just 5 percent of the vote in the 2021 Democratic primary and has not held office since.

Adams has amassed significant campaign contributions and has the backing of powerful labor unions, along with support from African Americans who want the city's second black mayor elected to a second term.

Dear Diary:

A taxi picked me up near Bryant Park on one of my last days in the city. As we turned onto Park Avenue, I had a sense of déjà vu.

“Is there a building around here you can drive through?” I asked the taxi driver.

“Yes!” he said. “Right behind us.”

“Maybe called the Pan Am Building?”

“It's MetLife now,” he said.

I told him that when I was a girl, my father would ask taxi drivers to drive through the building when we were in the area. After my parents' divorce, I explained, I visited my father in Manhattan on weekends, and he was always looking for ways to entertain me.

“Do you want to go through it?” the taxi driver asked.

“How long will it take?”

“Two minutes!”

He made a U-turn and drove into the building with the golden clock on the facade. The ride thrilled me no less than when I was 8 years old, 56 years earlier.

“You made my day,” I said as he dropped me off on the Upper West Side. “How long does it take to get to JFK on Sunday, anyway?”

“I work on Sunday!” he said. “You need a ride, here's my number.”

– Gigi Rosenberg

Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send your entries here And read more Metropolitan Diary here.

Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. – JB

PS Here is today's Mini crossword And Game competition. You can find all our puzzles here.