On a latest night time out in Midtown, a disco ball shimmered, hips swayed — and a lady in her late 70s twirled prefer it was 1976 once more.
Throughout city, a 91-year-old strolled the boardwalk at Coney Island together with her husband, reliving a date night time many years within the making.
The moments might appear like scenes from the previous, however they’re taking part in out in actual time — because of nostalgia-minded millennial TikTokkers Johnny Gaffney and Vin Nucatola.
The duo is behind the viral “Like Outdated Occasions” collection, which invitations seniors again to New York dance flooring, live shows, bowling alleys and different long-lost joys — giving Gothamites of a sure age a second shot on the metropolis they keep in mind.
Armed with one easy query — “What’s one thing you used to like doing that you simply haven’t achieved in years?” — they flip nostalgia into motion.
Gaffney and Nucatola, each 38, are completely happy to make every senior’s classic request a actuality — racking up hundreds of thousands of views and glowing suggestions alongside the way in which.
“Youthful folks usually lament about how superb the New York of yesterday appeared,” Gaffney instructed The Submit. “Vin and I need to present that ‘outdated New York’ remains to be accessible by way of the seniors who lived in it.”
“A lot of them are nonetheless right here,” he careworn. “If we need to faucet into what made the town so nice then, we’ve got to attach with them and ask them about it now.”
A kind of particular retro nights belonged to Elizabeth Katz, 79, a senior life-style mannequin from the Higher West Facet, who was whisked out for an evening of disco dancing in Occasions Sq..
Studio 54, revisited
“Not all seniors are gray-haired and frail, have dangerous enamel, or want a cane,” Katz instructed The Submit.
The glamorous Higher West Sider — who as soon as spent her nights at Studio 54 within the Nineteen Seventies — mentioned she hadn’t been inside a nightclub in additional than 30 years earlier than Gaffney and Nucatola confirmed up at her residence, helped her select an outfit, and arrived in a taxi with Gaffney dressed as her “date” in a tux.
At Disco Sally’s in Midtown, she mentioned the pair danced, mingled with strangers, and turned the night time right into a full-circle second.
“What I liked about taking pictures ‘Like Outdated Occasions’ is that I actually obtained to be seen,” she mentioned.
Katz added that dancing to syncopated beats and luxurious pop melodies once more felt liberating, like she was now not “performing for anybody else” or “worrying what anybody thought” of her, as she did in her 20s.
“I felt like my true self this time at 79,” she mentioned. “It was even higher than outdated occasions.”
The present is “much less about nostalgia and extra about reconnection,” Gaffney instructed The Submit.
“I’ve realized by way of making the present that many seniors simply need to join with their youthful selves and different folks greater than doing one particular exercise,” the Decrease East Sider added. “There are much less and fewer invites to hang around with different folks as you become old.”
For Nucatola and his manufacturing firm, Snackish Media, his first collection beneath the banner was rooted in one thing private.
Impressed by his late grandfather — who liked revisiting acquainted pastimes like bowling and Yankees video games together with his grandchildren in his closing years — Nucatola got down to create a collection centered on serving to seniors relive these “good ol’ days,” tapping Gaffney for his charisma and uncommon potential to attach with older adults on and off digital camera.
In contrast to typical viral content material, the objective wasn’t to show seniors into “punchlines or soundbites,” Nucatola mentioned, however to provide them one thing “really significant in return.”
The Staten Island director, producer and author careworn, “We actually simply needed to provide again to the senior neighborhood of New York — and now right here we’re with hundreds of thousands of views and hearts touched.”
That authenticity is by design. The duo retains their manufacturing lean — usually simply a few cameras and an iPhone — to assist seniors really feel comfy, with Nucatola including that “issues that appear and feel actual additionally resonate extra with folks on social media.”
5.7 million views and counting
Their method is working: What began with zero followers in November shortly snowballed right into a viral hit, with seven movies racking up greater than 5.7 million views.
Their first clip alone topped 100,000 views in a day earlier than climbing into the hundreds of thousands.
Lots of the seniors already know Gaffney from his off-camera work. The actor-comedian — a fixture in New York’s downtown comedy scene recognized for his high-energy, zany antics — launched Senior Centertainment final yr, a program bringing reside arts and inventive workshops into senior day facilities, the place he’s been working with older New Yorkers for years.
Others are nominated by family members by way of a submission kind within the collection’ Instagram bio, which Nucatola mentioned receives lots of of entries day by day.
The texture-good content material can be placing a chord with youthful viewers, with roughly 40% of the viewers between ages 25 and 34 — proof that the tales resonate far past their very own technology.
“These episodes are evergreen and timeless — they hold discovering which means with youthful viewers as they’re rediscovered months after we uploaded them,” Nucatola mentioned.
He added that many customers say the movies encourage them to attach extra with grandparents and older neighbors.
“There’s a loneliness downside on this nation, and there’s positively a senior isolation downside,” Gaffney mentioned. “So many seniors need to join with different folks and be invited to one thing.”
The overwhelming response of “Like Outdated Occasions” — and remark sections stuffed with positivity — suggests the message is touchdown.
Alongside the way in which, it’s the unscripted, emotional moments that stick.
Gaffney recalled a second that made him “emotional,” bringing a 78-year-old Bronx lady, Elsa Lugo, to see her favourite band, The Temptations, the place she danced, sang alongside, and was ecstatic when she obtained a shoutout onstage earlier than assembly them backstage.
‘My Lady’ in actual time
“We get to see every senior really feel extra like their true selves and really feel extra free and open in our time with them,” he mentioned. “It actually warms our hearts.”
Lugo, a retired particular training instructor from the Bronx, instructed The Submit, “My granddaughter nominated me for the present, and I’m so grateful for her.”
Her request was easy: a live performance — one thing she hadn’t attended in years.
However for Lugo, it meant greater than that. She grew up listening to The Temptations on the radio as a youngster, with “My Lady” nonetheless her favourite track many years later.
When the “Like Outdated Occasions” duo arrived to choose her up — even shocking her together with her brother becoming a member of the outing — she mentioned she instantly sensed one thing particular was coming.
“Once we pulled as much as the live performance venue, I noticed an indication with ‘The Temptations’ on it, and I couldn’t consider it,” she mentioned.
The group devoted “My Lady” to her mid-performance — a second she mentioned left her shocked in entrance of hundreds of followers.
“I grew up listening to them on the radio. Years later, there they had been, in entrance of me, dedicating my favourite track to me.”
Backstage, the second turned much more private. Lugo mentioned the band members greeted her warmly and hugged her.
For Lugo — who spent 23 years working as a particular training instructor and retired in 2015 after a again damage pressured her out of the classroom — the night time hit particularly onerous.
“I liked my college students and was so unhappy to say goodbye to them after I needed to retire due to my damage,” she mentioned. “‘Like Outdated Occasions’ made me really feel excited and joyful once more.”
Gaffney and Nucatola’s outings aren’t nearly solo nostalgia — generally, they double as love letters.
Married couple Invoice Weeden, 85, and Dolores McDougal Schaeffer Weeden, 91, had been chauffeured from Woodstock, New York, again right down to Coney Island, Brooklyn, for a date night time they hadn’t skilled in many years.
A date night time many years later
“Johnny and Vin picked us up in a limo and took my spouse, Dolores and I all the way in which from Woodstock to Coney Island,” Invoice instructed The Submit.
The couple — married for 31 years — spent the night time consuming scorching canines, driving the carousel and dancing beneath the celebs.
“We obtained to snicker and really feel like youngsters with the amusement park video games,” he mentioned.
“I all the time say the important thing to an extended marriage is laughter and feeling childlike once more, and ‘Like Outdated Occasions’ helped us do this. I can’t consider how viral our video went.”
For Dolores, the night time carried an emotional weight that lingered lengthy after the boardwalk lights dimmed.
“I cry after I consider that night time, and the way superb it was to bop on the Coney Island boardwalk with Invoice,” she mentioned.
Even the climate couldn’t derail the second — when fireworks had been canceled resulting from wind, she recalled Gaffney pulling up a video of fireworks on his cellphone as they danced.
“It was touching to see him and Vin make such an effort for us to have an important date night time,” she mentioned.
