What is happening here ? Many things. We are right at the Rockefeller Center, a place full of tourist, even late at night. But some people are at work there also. There is a truck pumping something. Why is it done right in the middle of the night ? Several reasons : they want to keep the city noisy at all time… They most likely could not do this work during the day due to the heavy traffic in the neighborhood. Or there is some urgency. But the center of the picture is not on the ground. It is over the street level. It is the American flag somehow illuminated. Where would one see a French flag in Paris in the middle of a busy street? Nowhere… except maybe on Bastille Day, under the Arc de Triomphe, and then it would be a huge flag. Again, the country that we "Old Europe" citizens consider as very modern and advanced compared to our old battered nations is more inclined to traditions than we are…