Last year, June of 2006 to be exact, I went to New York for an SOA Developer's Conference for about a week.  I went to see several shows, including the Tony Award Winning Avenue Q (which I highly recommend).  I also saw The Producers, Phantom of the Opera, and a few other plays with gratuitous nudity and one other one with that dude that played Darth Sidious in the Star Wars movies.  In any case, after seeing Phantom of the Opera, I came out of the theater and noticed that while I was within, one of the Marqees had been completely removed and replaced with another just across the street.  It was for a show I hadn't heard of called Manhattan Memories.  I was baffled for a moment until I saw that one of the stars was Mary Jane Watson, and I knew I had to have suddenly stumbled into a filming session of Spider-Man 3 on the streets of New York City.

Now, I probably wouldn't have stayed, because I figured that as crowded as it was, hardly anyone would be able to actually see the filming or the stars of the movie even in brief cameos.  Still, I couldn't go anywhere.  EVERYTHING was blocked off until those involved were finished filming.  Besides, my best friend on Earth and his son (who is also my godson) are probably the biggest Spider-Man fans in North America.  So I decided to stick it out and do my best.  I pushed my way to the front and pulled out the only camera I had available at such short notice, the one attached to my cell phone.  Now, this should tell you something about the quality of said photos.  Only three of the photos I took were worth showing, and even then, they weren't that great in terms of quality.  But with the Spider-Man 3 movie and the video game adaptations on practically every console known to modern man looming on the horizon, I've decided to share them with you anyway.

This one is of the false marquee of the Manhattan Memories show, note the bottom star's name listed on said marquee -- our own Mary Jane Watson.

This one is of actor James Franco, right after he filmed a scene playing Harry Osborn with Tobey Maguire.  He's escaping into the crew's van.

Finally, here is the Spider-Dude himself, or at least the most realistic version of him that our sadly-grounded-in-reality planet can produce.  He's escaping after filming another scene, he turned to the crowd and smiled of course, but I wasn't quick enough to catch that one.  I'd have preferred that this picture not have included the less-impressive entourage of movie-making technical assistants, but what can ya do?

So yeah, that's all I have to show.  Believe me, the rest of the twenty or so photos were basically me trying to get good shots and failing miserably.  In short, they are not worth seeing.  Yes, I know these pictures kind of suck, but they are better than what most of you took on that day, right?