Why could I so easily see and photograph such a bright totally eclipsed Moon from a bright city road? (May 26, 2021 total lunar eclipse)
Based on your description of your experiences, my guess is that it’s not that this eclipse was especially bright, but rather that the previous one you saw was unusually dark.  My experience (late 1990s to present) has always been that a totally eclipsed moon is easy to see even under bright urban conditions, but this page says that there were some eclipses in the 1980s and early 1990s that were hard to see due to recent volcanic eruptions.  Do you know the date of the previous eclipse you saw?