Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. Although continuous throughout adolescence, the specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. Shot over the span of a year in my son’s life—from 13 to 14— and to be boy eternal observes what it means to undergo one of life’s ultimate transformations while living in twenty first century New York City. Pairing the classic documentary style of photography that chronicles events objectively in everyday life with the coming-of-age genre in literature which tends to emphasize internal monologue over action, I stay a quiet bystander to my son’s physical, emotional and artistic emancipation in his urban environment as if the quest for self and art alike can only be carried out in the glare and existential exposure of the city he grows up in.