If for most of recent urban history the preferred form of footwear for men in a city was the shoe, we have definitively entered a new era – the Age of the Sandal. This decidedly unscientific observation is based on a late summer walking tour of Manhattan from top to bottom, on the east and west sides.

Everywhere, in every setting, above and below ground in New York City, people – male-identified people – are flaunting their toes. Whether they are doing this because, as Women’s Wear Daily reported in July, we are in the middle of a booming sandals trend or merely because it was so hot this northern hemisphere summer, who can know?