We’re celebrating the end of one year and the beginning of the next by thanking BSA Readers, Friends, and Family for your support in 2025. Picked by our followers, these photos are the heavily circulated and “liked” selections of the year – shot by our Editor of Photography, Jaime Rojo. We’re sharing a new one every day to celebrate all our good times together, our hope for the future, and our love for the street. Happy Holidays, Everyone!

First thing on a Friday morning in the city, you might be hustling to the subway, walking a kid to school, or juggling coffee and a cranky toddler. Or, depending on the calendar, you might be lighting a small fire on the sidewalk.

On the morning before Passover, Hasidic Jews in a few Brooklyn neighborhoods complete a religious ritual called biur chametz, the final removal of leavened food, traditionally by burning it before a specific hour. Fire here isn’t ceremonial or dramatic—it’s practical, deliberate, and brief – but there is always an audience. In a place like Brooklyn, that can mean flames and smoke billowing on the concrete, neighbors pausing, kids watching from a distance, a couple of cops standing by, and a whiff of smoke cutting across the usual mix of languages, routines, and lives—an ancient practice carried out calmly in the middle of a very modern city.