Lifestyle

I’m a model — and I’m homeless

The typical perception of a homeless person is of a drunk, drug addict or lost soul. Model-turned-actor-and-photographer Mark Reay, 56, originally from northwestern New Jersey, who appears in the award-winning documentary “Homme Less,” (showing at New York’s IFC Center on Aug. 7) fit in only the latter category. For six years, the handsome charmer lived undetected on a rooftop in New York’s East Village, where he masqueraded as a successful man about town while hiding his secret. He tells Jane Ridley his story.

Immaculately dressed in a chic Italian suit and designer eyeglasses, I take my cue — lifting my gaze as the camera cuts to the star of the TV commercial, French actor Gaspard Ulliel.

Working as an extra on Martin Scorsese’s 2010 ad for the cologne Bleu de Chanel, I’m channeling a rich European businessman who drips style and sophistication.

Reay briefly appeared in a 2010 fragrance ad by director Martin Scorsese.

The “wealthy silver fox” is my signature look. So the irony isn’t lost on me that I dressed for the shoot in the public bathroom at Tompkins Square Park, where I shaved, brushed my teeth and rinsed out my mouth with a bottle of Poland Spring.

I duct-taped a mirror to the stalls so I could check my reflection. When you’re homeless, you have to improvise.

Given my slick, manicured, 6-foot-3 image and seemingly glamorous job as a model, actor and photographer, people will find it hard to believe that I lived without a home for six long years in New York City. Only my closest friends knew the truth.

Sure I lived in the East Village, but not in an apartment. I slept in the open air, battling the elements inside a sleeping bag on the rooftop of a friend’s building. From August 2008 to July 2014, my only shelter was a tarp.

To get ready for a modeling job, Reay brushes his teeth and shaves in a public restroom in Tompkins Square Park, which is near the rooftop he sleeps on.Filmhaus Films

It began after I spent a less-than-lucrative summer in the South of France, where I’d hoped to find work as a photographer. Before then, after graduating from the College of Charleston in South Carolina, I’d earned a modest income as a model, working in expensive cities like Milan, Paris and Madrid, where I stayed in models’ group apartments.

In my mid-20s, I walked the runway for Gianni Versace, Franco Moschino and Missoni. I even appeared in French Vogue, for which I got paid $60. I only made about $10,000 per year — just enough to support myself and my love of travel. As anyone in the fashion industry knows, the six- and seven-figure paychecks are only for the lucky few.

When I moved back to the US, I juggled modeling and small acting roles with conventional jobs, like working full-time for a visa coordinator company in San Francisco. But I found the routine deathly boring. I was never the type to settle down or save for a deposit for a mortgage. I longed to live in Europe again.

Reay has been modeling since his 20s. Below, he poses for a portfolio test shot in Vienna.Daniela Stallinger

Daniela Stallinger
In the late ’90s, back in New York City doing catering and occasionally working as an actor on shows like the first season of “Sex and the City” (where I played an international playboy who was the boyfriend of one of Carrie’s friends!), I lived in a $175-a-month single-room-occupancy building in Chelsea. I was offered $30,000 to move out when the area was gentrified.

I took the cash, flew to Rio de Janeiro for a vacation and learned my craft as a photographer. I also had fun. That’s the sort of guy I was — no strings attached. I never had a serious relationship with a woman or told anyone that I loved them other than my family.

Back in New York in early 2008, I did backstage camera work at fashion shows for magazines like Dazed & Confused (mostly unpaid) and photography for the likes of Diane von Furstenberg, for which I’d get $200 as a back-up photographer, and when I was the principal photographer, as much as $1,500 per day. The salary wasn’t regular. I put the money into my bank account, but I had no savings.

Next, I went to France for the summer, where I planned to take pictures of rich people on vacation. But none of them needed my services, and I had to scrape by. I’ve never let not having money interfere with my adventures. I couldn’t afford a hotel, so I’d sleep on the hillside, hiding my laptop computer in the bushes. Because of the image I projected, I fit perfectly into the affluent Riviera setting. I’d sit on the beach flirting with gorgeous women.

The French experience prepared me for my return to New York a few weeks later.

I was commissioned by Dazed & Confused to photograph spring/summer ’09 Fashion Week — $700 for all seven days of Fashion Week. I couldn’t afford Manhattan’s sky-high rents, so I moved into a $30-a-night youth hostel in Williamsburg, but left after 48 hours because I got covered in what I thought were bedbug bites. I thought: “Where on Earth can I go?” I didn’t want to infest my friends’ places, so I felt I had no choice but to sleep rough.

That’s when I remembered I had the keys to the lobby of a friend’s five-story Alphabet City walk-up and, without him knowing, I snuck onto his roof and stayed the night.

Reay shoots backstage photos for a magazine at New York Fashion Week in September 2013.Filmhaus Films

There was a small space on the roof with railings around it, overlooked by no one. I had to hang onto a fence and walk out onto a ledge to access it, but it was my own 8-foot-by-3½-foot triangle of safety and privacy. With a tarp pulled over me and a plastic juice bottle to pee in during the night, I could get a pretty good sleep.

Reay fits in well with the fashion crowd — here with Tim Gunn in February 2011.Charles Eshelman/Getty Images

I didn’t think that I’d wind up spending the better part of six years sleeping there, but that’s what happened. Amazingly, I got away with it without ever having to tell my friend what I was doing. I was careful not to run into him on the stairs, or any of the other residents for that matter. I learned to constantly hold my cellphone in my hand so I could fend off any questions by pretending I was on the line with someone.

One of the great things about being in New York is that everyone’s too busy to notice you. I was just a middle-aged white guy who wasn’t drunk or wearing dirty clothes, so I didn’t raise suspicion.

And that was my modus operandi. During the day, I’d buzz around fashion shows, taking photographs of models. At night, I’d sit in Starbucks retouching in Photoshop before sending the images to the magazine in London.

At this point, I was living subsistence-style and had practically no money to my name. My paltry income just about covered my gym membership, locker rental, cellphone, health insurance and food.

Reay wakes up on the rooftop of his pal’s building in Alphabet City. Somehow, his friend never discovers that he is living there.Filmhaus Films

I’d eat breakfast at a deli — maybe a bacon-and-egg sandwich for $3.50 — and then have lunch and dinner at noodle shops for $7.95. About my only indulgence was drinking a beer at the Veselka Ukrainian diner on Second Avenue.

I never took anybody back to my roof — women were few and far between — but I had the most magnificent view over Midtown. It felt like I had the world at my feet. It was freeing.

Of course, I had friends who worried about me — they would often let me stay at their places during electrical storms, for instance, when I might have been in danger — but they let me do my thing. Even in the winter, when it was cold and snowing, I’d be OK. I’d just make sure I wore extra warm clothes.

Meanwhile, the YMCA on Sixth Avenue and 14th Street was a godsend. I paid $90 a month for membership. I’d shower there every day and work out five or six days a week, making sure I kept in great shape for my extra gigs, which included playing an attorney in “The Good Wife” and an FBI agent in the movie “Men In Black 3.”

I owned a few decent suits, which I kept in my gym locker. I’d wash stuff like underwear and shirts at the Y, using the swimsuit spinner. I even had an iron in my locker.

Reay pays $90 a month for a membership at the YMCA, where he showers, and washes (below) and irons his clothes (above).Filmhaus Films

Filmhaus Films
Sure, I’d get weird looks and the odd comment, like, “Hey, are you setting up home here?” But I’d deflect them with humor. “Yes, I’m ironing for free today,” I’d say. “Just bring your shirts over next and I’ll add them to the pile.”

But, despite the bravado, about four years ago, I got into a bad place mentally. I’d find myself getting angry, upset at my inability to have a fulfilling life and career.

Then I had a psychological breakthrough. I told myself, “Just accept that you are lost.” I took all responsibility for where I am, who I am and the decisions I made. It helped me justify living on the roof.

In 2010, I reconnected with my Austrian friend, Thomas Wirthensohn, a former model-turned-filmmaker who was looking for a subject for a documentary. When I told him about my homelessness, he was intrigued. We decided to collaborate on “Homme Less.”

“I was just a middle-aged white guy who wasn’t drunk or wearing dirty clothes, so I didn’t raise suspicion,” says model and photographer Mark Reay, pictured above recently in Tompkins Square Park.Brian Zak

By making this film, it meant I had to give up my spot on the rooftop because my cover was blown. The last time I stayed in my little space was July 2014, before the documentary started showing at film festivals.

Now I’m living part-time with my elderly mom in northwest New Jersey (she never found out about my homelessness and doesn’t know about the documentary) and couch-surfing in Manhattan, picking up occasional acting, modeling and photography work.

I’m proud to tell my story and to be part of such an artistic movie, which gives me much hope for the future.