Hickey's Times Square debut.   (Photo: Courtesy of Kimbra Hickey)

Kimbra Hickey, foot model

I grew up in Connecticut, not far from the city, and came to New York about fifteen years ago. I went to school for massage therapy and did the whole college in New York thing. My friends had been telling me forever that my feet are great and I should be a foot model. I just laughed at them. And then one day I saw an ad in the Learning Annex about how to be a “parts” model. So I thought, What the heck, and took the class, for $40. There were about 50 people there, but the agent who was running the class chose me to go further with modeling. This was eight years ago. I started getting jobs here and there, and you shoot them and you never know where your foot’s going to show up. Usually it’s just catalogues and shoe store ads. You just do the job and get a day rate (from $150 to $2,000), and they can use it wherever they want.

So about a year ago, I ended up booking a job for Target—it just so happened that the shoe fit me perfectly. They hired me, and they didn’t tell me where it was going to be, so I just took the job and that was that.

A few months ago, I was walking through Times Square and looked up and gasped. It took my breath away; I couldn’t believe it. There was my foot, ten stories high! I called my agent and said, “Can you believe it? My foot’s in Times Square!” Who runs into their foot in Times Square?

As told to Emma Rosenblum