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Touching Portraits of Couples Who've Been Together Over 50 Years 
(16:23:39 PM 15/03/2014)
The New York-based photographer captures beautifully intimate moments between New York City couples that have been together over 50 years. She accompanies each image with a sweet short story, like one you'd imagine hearing during the classic romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally.
For the photo above, for example, husband Moses Rubenstein of Brooklyn states, "Now I am going on 88. My wife is 85 and I'm only wishing for another 5 or 6 years of life. This is all we want. We don't want to live much longer. As a matter of fact, I always say to my wife, I wish I could reach 94. This is the aim of my existence. I'd like to see my grandson earn a living and my granddaughter get married. We want them to be happy the way we were."
Fleishman began this series after her grandfather's death. In a book next to his bed, she discovered a series of love letters he had written to her grandmother who he had been married to for more than 50 years. Inspired by this, she decided to create a photographic series of "love letters."
"You really don't think about getting older. First of all, you're aging together and when you see a person constantly you don't notice big changes. Like you don't notice, oh you're getting a little wrinkle here and tomorrow you say oh it's a little deeper. No those are things that just happen. You dont pay attention to those things. You dont realize it.. really . You dont realize that you're.. I mean I'm not thinking everyday, oh my husbands 83 years old he's gonna be 84. Oh my goodness, I'm married to an old man. And I hope he feels that way too."
—Angie Terranova, Staten Island, New York
"We met each other at a dancing party. It was January 1938. My friend invited me to the party. He said there were a lot of beautiful young girls. Another cadet with high boots had approached her but she didn't like high boots and so she said no to him. I was the second one to approach her, I had a different uniform, but I'm still not sure if it was my uniform or my face that attracted her to me."
—Yevgeniy Kissin, Midwood, Brooklyn
"Little by little we age but we don't change in our hearts. Love gets stronger. That is the way I feel. I believe he feels the same way. Yes, he was my first love. My first love and my last."
—Leila Ramos, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
"We knew each other before the war but we never spoke. He was with other girls because he was much, much older than me. You know he was very nice looking! He was a tailor and he had a place where he made suits for men.
When we came back from the war he had gone to my sisters house. I was staying with her. In August of this year we will have been married 63 years. I would say love came little by little. Not right away. We were young and he was older but I liked him. He spoke to me in a very nice way."
—Golda Pollac, Mill Basin, Brooklyn
"I was having a problem in school because I had to write a music paper and I had never written anything about music. It was my mother who had suggested that I go see David because he knew so much about music. So I went over and I thought maybe he would write it for me! But he said no, I'll help you but you have to write it yourself. He always had very high standards. After we wrote the paper together he asked me to go to a party with some of his army friends. You know, I had never thought of him romantically! He looked at me the way a man who has just come out of the army would look at a sexy woman."
—Sheila Newman, Flatlands, Brooklyn
—Ykov Shapirshteyn, Brighton Beach, Brooklyn
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