New York City is known for its extravagant lifestyle. Mitzvah-Palooza was so over the top that it’s in a category all its own.

I was hired by the producer of the lighting to photograph a party at the Rainbow Room atop Rockefeller Center on Nov 26, 2005, that he assured me “was going to knock my socks off.” I had no idea.

As the evening began, I realized what an amazing opportunity I had. I was not responsible for shooting any of the bat-mitzvah ceremony itself, I needed to photograph the performers and the lighting of the same. It gave me a freedom to experiment and take images that were so much more than the party itself.

It started with a bang. When I was handed the list of shots needed, it was a photographers dream.

Start the evening with “appetizers and cocktails” with Kenny G. Follow the kids to their “dance party” with Ciara. Everyone comes together in the main room for “introductions” with Fitty Cent. “Dinner music” with Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Stevie Nicks. Have your “desert” with an acoustic performance by Tom Petty. And finally, end the evening with the “after-performance” by Aerosmith.

At the time, I didn’t even know the name of the family throwing the party. By the end of the night and the years since, I have come to know and realize just how despicable the people involved truly were. I can’t and won’t blast the girl whose bat-mitzvah it was, but her father definitely paid the price for his excesses.

Elizabeth Brooks’ bat mitzvah will always be called “Mitzvahpalooza.” Her father, David, died in jail on Nov. 1, 2018, serving a 17-year sentence after being convicted in 2010 for his role in what prosecutors described as a $200 million fraud.

In 2005, he spared no expense to celebrate his daughter’s Jewish coming of age. Brooks, CEO of DHB Industries, a Westbury-based manufacturer of bulletproof vests, went so far as dispatching his company jet to retrieve Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry from their concert in Pittsburgh. The garish display of rock ‘n’ roll idol worship was over the top.

Each room was decorated and lit to excess. R & B diva Ciara played to a packed room of teenagers underneath a ceiling covered with oversized butterflies. I have to be honest, in 2005 I didn’t know who she was, but the energy from the teenagers screaming to her music told me that I needed to find out who she was.

Walking into the room with appetizers and cocktails, I overheard more than one guest say, “Oh my God, that’s Kenny G!” His music was definitely there for the older crowd of parents and grandparents seated around the room.