Then, I didnt have the kind of formal board that one would today. Wheres Joe? Eventually youd realize that he died, and his family came and put his artwork in a dumpster. Darryl McDaniels, musician and member of Run-DMC. I had just moved the gallery to Franklin Street in TriBeCa from West 57th Street. He wasnt exactly made of money, though he fished through a bucket of change every morning to buy his one meal of the day, a bagel but Block claims this was a time when it didnt cost a ton to open and run a bar in Manhattan. And they said, Yeah, you can have that they werent even thinking about it. We finished that scene around 6 oclock in the morning. Everybody was happy for him and saying, O.K., its possible, were in the right place, were doing the right thing., I remember the first time we went in and read A Soldiers Play out loud, we were all just staring at each other going, Oh my god, this is amazing. Two days later, Adolph came in, threw his script down, and said, Im ready! And we all looked at him like, Okay, fine! So we all threw our scripts down, too, because everybody had learned the play in like two days. I saw Jody Watley on television, and I was like, They dont steal silver, Im going to wear those!. Since no ones making them, they dont.. Honestly, my mind was empty, but I wanted to be consumed by that emptiness. I would stay in the clubs, but I wouldnt dance. Or I would throw a party. I found them very original, underivative of the 60s or 70s they had a cleanness and a strength to them. Wed bring the coffee back to the lot and keep filming. Miller, Edited by Kate Guadagnino and Thessaly La Force. Before that it had been pot. It was frequented by many celebrities, especially actors and authors. In the '80s, 25 East 61st st. was home to B. Harris & Sons, jeweler to the stars! The quiet and space afforded clarity. It was like a village, yknow? I asked the kids to demonstrate what theyd been doing. It was a very quiet audience. Mozart. The writer Gay Taleses social calendar for October 1983. Delmonico's, 21-23 William Street (1831-1923, intermittently thereafter) In 1831 Swiss brothers John and Peter Delmonico founded the city's first . The venues didn't matter to me. Somebody might have called during the night to say they might have job opportunities, so you always checked your machine. I spent a decade in New York City like that. I also had a tiny place on 12th Street between Greenwich and Washington the top back room of a falling-apart townhouse that the owner was renting out. My parents were heroin addicts, beatniks. So were in this abandoned lot on a corner of 11th Avenue, somewhere in the high 40s or low 50s and not far from the old deserted elevated slate railroad that became the Highline. Then we hit the clubs: Sound Factory, the Roxy, the Fun House. Sometimes wed have lunch. Yorkville, Manhattan photos from the 1980s Yorkville, Upper East Side Manhattan in the 1980's, all photos by Gary Lenhart E. 86th St., NYC [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="204 gal_title="E 86th St NYC Photos"] York Ave., NYC [Best_Wordpress_Gallery id="205 gal_title="York Ave NYC Photos"] 1st. I just wanted to be in New York. They are not obliged to talk to anyone. Even by the early 1990s, the Upper East Side remained haunted by what had happened there in 1986, when the infamous Preppy Killer, Robert Chambers, had pounded tequila and beer chasers at Dorrians Red Hand with Jennifer Levin before killing her in Central Park later that evening. Whether you were struggling, successful or just plain lucky, these stories remind us that in these years New York City dirty, dangerous, derelict, dazzling was the only place to be. The apartment had this old refrigerator that didnt have room for much, so in the winter Id keep everything out on the fire escape. draw in the skirts that bring in the suits. Sometimes you would want to go to a Police concert, but you wouldnt want to tell your friends, because they would be, like, Thats so commercial and gross. When it was the Dead Kennedys, Ari Up, The Slits, Public Image Ltd, you were all in full agreement. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 is sometimes used as a marker of the beginning of the end of the art world as it was then known, as if the two were somehow related, as if an election ushered in some new aesthetic permission, a new vulgarity, which is really a kind of negative magical thinking. It was crazy. State records are incomplete. Like Geronimos Bamba Bay Cafe (a.k.a. It was the tale of two cities back then, and I was in my late 20s, trying to get the message out, running the National Youth Movement out of an office in St. Marys Hospital in Bed-Stuy. No one could believe that this B-actor was about to occupy the White House. Cramped beer and shot joints with names like the Blue Moon, Czar Bar, and Richters were all vying for the attention of this influx of recently graduated young adults who wanted to go out, but had little money to do so. The bakery, located in the front and open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., is great for an excellent croissant and coffee break. Hey, I said. The weekend that it happened, I got a call at 2 oclock in the morning from the owner of the theater. He needed someone he trusted. How you doin this morning?, He was young, dressed in jeans, and clearly shocked. Not only did we dress in wigs and dresses from 14th Street, but we took on personas to match. Denzel had just gotten St. Todd Jorgensen ran the Xerox machine in Jamie Canvas, the art supply store in SoHo everybody went to. Brandy's Piano Bar 68 Bars & Clubs Gay Bars Upper East Side Open now We would sit at this coffee table and listen to records for an hour. Likewise, by the end of the 1990s, the cocktail revival was just about to start in earnest in Manhattan pioneering cocktail bars such as Angels Share and Milk & Honey would open in 1993 and 1999, respectively and the craft beer and brewpub scene was in its infancy, and just about to explode in the aughts. It must have been late spring of 1981. Maybe he could do your book under that contract. So I went to the Factory and stood at a tall table with Andy and Bob, and Andy went through the dummy. What if they just let all women drink for free? I was doing A Soldiers Play with the Negro Ensemble Company, working with Denzel [Washington], Adolph Caesar, Larry Riley, James Pickens, Brent Jennings, Cotter Smith. (212) 861-2290. When Flashdance came out in 1983, Paramount put me up in the Carlyle Hotel to do promotion. Together, this chorus of voices assembled, edited and condensed creates a compelling mosaic, revealing a city bustling with creativity but also slowly emerging from its recent near-bankruptcy, with upscale restaurants just blocks away from rubble-filled, graffiti-painted lots. 68. Id work for 12 hours straight, prepping for my show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery. I was very attached to the Madison Avenue Bookshop, because of my Harvard connection to its owner, Arthur Lehman Loeb, and its excellence. There was a thing I did every Friday night because my boyfriend [now husband, artist Carroll Dunham] worked at Time magazine, so I wasnt out looking for guys. The object was to keep stitching no matter what happened to the fabric. Clear all filters. Thats where I first met [the late street-style photographer] Bill Cunningham, I think. Bronwyn Thomas, she was like happy feet on her toes. We were shooting the pilot, and I was trying to find the best dancers I could. Those who set the tone you had to have an outfit from me. Hes a Leo all the Leos I know love history. Learn more about historic floods. I was finishing my dissertation and working as the porn critic for the New York Native, so Id go up to the Adonis at 51st and Eighth and different theaters in Times Square. Sometimes you would cry, but most of the time you were just stunned, like it wasnt real. It wasnt a rich peoples restaurant; it was a restaurant for people Elaine happened to like. He had intended whatever conversation we were having to go in another direction. Even by the early 1990s, the Upper East Side remained haunted by what had happened there in 1986, when the infamous Preppy Killer, Robert Chambers, had pounded tequila and beer chasers at. Guerrilla art activities took place all over. It was packed every night; it won the Pulitzer Prize that year. The pictures on the wall were all from the Fifties, and a group of us girls would go and get our hair done in crazy bouffants. If we got too cold or needed coffee, we would go over to 12th Avenue, where there were these old, sort of silver-clad Greek coffee shops that just dont exist anymore. And then eventually some surface decoration with tucks and treatment Id take the fabric and just sew in any direction. We never served any food, but we always had a couple cases of beer and a basic bar. He recognized me and stopped to congratulate me on the film. Gay and straight people would party together. I had a loft downtown on Walker Street, one of the first buildings that went on loft strike. Otherwise neighborhood wasnt as important as finding a space one guy I knew, the photographer Patrick McMullan, lived in the coat-check room of a former hotel. They paid me like a tenth of what they paid me to do the acting, and it became my whole life. 1. Come be a part of it. The doors would open and things would get going by 10, and by midnight it would be raging. People divided themselves into camps based on which one they favored I liked Odessa better, but Id go to both. When we went out it was to perform. Belgian, Crepes, Wine Bar, Coffee Shop Menu Available. I worked in my office at home, an eight-room walk-up on the Upper West Side. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth performing at CBGB in 1983. The apartment, at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street, was like a fantasy apartment huge, with a view of the reservoir. It was social, the Upper East Side ladies. His name opened every door for me. I didnt have the scratch to make it livable, but I met this guy named Peter Marino [the architect and designer] in the elevator who was doing a high-end renovation on the top floor and negotiated with him. I existed like a soldier preparing for combat. And when my mother asked me where I was at, I just said, Oh, I was in the attic.. Photo by James & Karla Murray from their book NEW YORK NIGHTS After its appearance in Woody Allen's 1984 film, Broadway Danny Rose , Carnegie Deli became a classic. By 1968, 85 bars called the neighborhood home, like Gleason's, slightly further uptown near Yorkville, and similarly decorated to Friday's, with Tiffany lamps and the ornate wooden bar that had graced the Schaefer Beer pavilion at the 1964 World's Fair. At the end of the night I would walk all the way home. That completely opened my mind. By the end of the relationship, I was living there. People thought I was a little crazy. You wanted to be there when it was happening, and then youd migrate at around 2:30 to an after-hours club. When he got sick, we were in a downward spiral for a year and a half. We made an altar to a llama, and everyone dressed in kind of Greco-Roman outfits I wore a toga with sequins. Even though every single record Id put out up until then was gold, platinum or multiple platinum, Diana was the first time Id ever worked with a big star. Brooklyn: Empire Roller Skating Center, a rink with a sound system built by Richard Long that was a favorite of Chers; Albee Square, a public mall where Big Daddy Kane and Biz Markie used to hang out. . Wed spend hours getting our outfits together buying stuff at Canal Plastics Center, stapling photo booth pictures onto our jackets. Soon there was an all-out war being waged for putting butts on barstools, and in these days before the internet, the bars would advertise their increasingly outrageous specials in the Village Voice and free local fliers sloppily stacked at the entrance to ATM banks, while hoping for write-ups in New York Magazines weekly goings-on section. I got my first loft in what was called Lower Manhattan before it was renamed the Triangle Below Canal, which was the realtors term that became TriBeCa, in 1967. I was working at the Whitney and helping to open different museum branches, so I was shuttling between 42nd Street, Stamford, Conn., and the downtown branch, which was just a few blocks from where I lived, on Front Street in the South Street Seaport area. We blacked out the skylights and windows and painted most of it gold very Warholian. When I crossed the bridge, I had my Saturday Night Fever moment the city was for the taking. I made a short performance called Life Without Grace, a kind of eulogy. Back then no one came in and said, Let me see your bar menu, says Block. Youd establish dialogue with great artists like Lawrence Weiner. It was totally improvised, like a live prayer: Do you know that people are dying?, What Happened in New York Between 1981 and 1983, The Artists Who Brought Asian-Americans Into the Annals of Contemporary Art, 5 New York Times Writers on What They Got Right and Wrong in the Early 80s, What New York Was Like in the Early 80s Hour by Hour, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/t-magazine/24-hours-new-york-city-1980s-life.html. In a letter about her trip, she wrote, When pages needed to be retyped, Jimmy did the retyping. For one assignment, the paper sent me to Washington Heights to photograph what it said was a riot. But I didnt feel super cool or anything. Id go for two, three, four hours and have a fairly good time. It had a tub in the kitchen, a tiny little toilet bowl in a closet of a room, one narrow hallway room and a slightly bigger front room maybe $210. Thats what happened at Club 57 a lot: We told people, This is the theme. In the early 80s, I had a great loft in the meatpacking district, which at that point was full of meat hanging on hooks and blood running in the streets. Still, he found ladies night ultimately quite profitable. Reagan really ruined it for me. I didnt know what I was doing. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. There were very few places to work out back then. He said he was going to lunch with some friends, and did I want to join? And why I got out.. Talk to the actors as they drifted in about your day, talk about whos auditioning for what. I had been starring on Broadway in West Side Story, and I had done the movie Ragtime, which was also coming out, but dance has always been my heartbeat. I would write longhand, sit down at the typewriter and type what I had, take those pages across the room to a different chair, sit down and work between the double spaces, do another draft. When me and Run would go to each others houses and rap together, we would go into the attic. And, of course, so did the men. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. PM: We refused to take a job. CBGB was just up the street, and I performed there with my band or as a solo poet many times. The mayoral election of Rudy Giuliani in 1994 would favor the NIMBYs, as he sent task forces around to raid bars, enforce cabaret laws with hefty fines, and even enact Operation Last Call, having police officers carry a meter to check noise levels around closing time. I committed the tapes to memory; I would do them over and over. As told to Kate Guadagnino,Elizabeth Gumport,Merrell Hambleton and Erin Sheehy. Everything was different for me. If I threw a party, by midnight there was probably an especially good mix of people there. Being at the Carlyle was amazing, but I was still an undergrad at Yale at the time, and the whole thing felt unreal, as though I was living two lives. I would just sit there. Owner Sean Fleming's band was among the many popular bands that would perform there. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. In those days, there wasnt any downtown, so life was much easier. I remember I was drawn to the ad for the loft because it was in a place that sounded like trifecta; my father had taken me to the track, so that seemed comforting and familiar. Block had learned of high-octane fish bowl cocktails during his brief Brother Jimmys stint and Ski Bar served its own versions with names like the Worldcup. I knew so many people in Harlem, I kept a second apartment in the Bronx, where I tried to be unseen. This was a luxury ski town, not the Upper East Side, and he had to ultimately tone things down. I would go to these obscure classes around the city that were mostly for dancers. I had this idea I was going to be a writer; if I couldnt, there would be no point to my life. Of course, it wasnt just rising rents, Mayor Giuliani, and smart phones that would kill ladies night on the Upper East Side. These are the moments, large and small, recounted by 36 writers, artists, fashion designers, musicians and more who. It needs to be said that, technically, ladies nights were illegal in New York and had been so for quite a time.

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