Id get to the gallery late afternoon. CBGB was just up the street, and I performed there with my band or as a solo poet many times. But I had a new Mercedes-Benz, and Id leave it in front of the store when I was in Harlem so people knew they could reach me. And if I missed it, I felt really bad. Plodding. I lived and still live in a large duplex at the corner of Park Avenue and 80th Street, in a 1907 building designed by Delano and Aldrich. While her friend Sara explained, We dont even like this place. 68. It was a very different kind of neighborhood from the one I grew up in in Harlem just starting to be gentrified. There was . After shows at La MaMa, we would go to the gay bar on East Fourth Street and Second Ave. I started spending a third of my time there. Youd establish dialogue with great artists like Lawrence Weiner. 380 Lafayette St, New York . It was on 35th and Fifth, and it was a place where the sushi came around on a conveyor belt. A few blocks away was the Ninth Street Bakery. Caribbean Restaurants Restaurants. I liked to work out in the late afternoon, because in the morning I wanted to save every iota of energy for my work and the store. My dormitory was at the corner of East 14th Street and Union Square. Id work for 12 hours straight, prepping for my show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery. AIDS was a very strange situation; starting in 82 you knew very little about it, and then a few years later you suddenly realized it was the largest killer among your personal friends. hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. My first photo lab was called Hy Photo. Ever since I moved out of my parents house in Astoria to live in the city, Ive always lived within the same two or three blocks of the Upper West Side. My habit must have appeared bizarre to my peers. But, most women slugging free beers at Brother Jimmys or complimentary Champagne at Jungle Jims or on-the-house Slalom Shots at Ski Bar arguably enjoyed these ladies night deals. One is the van that were filming in thats our set but also a place to stay warm in between shots one is a car for running errands and then theres a truck, guarded by two Doberman pinschers, with all of our lighting and camera equipment. He and I had dinner every night, and a stream of our friends, including Keith Haring and Debbie Harry, would join. 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. Indeed, many of his customers would come from Normandie Court a block away. I remember thinking, How long can this go on? . It seems we could start later than this. Brandy's Piano Bar 68 Bars & Clubs Gay Bars Upper East Side Open now These are the moments, large and small, recounted by 36 writers, artists, fashion designers, musicians and more who. The Times considered it a a bit of a fallen Disneyworld, chalking that up to the eras young singles having no pretensions to hipness and a perhaps commendable lack of irony.. Jumbo-sized martini glasses smeared with ruby lipstick. By my late teens, people used to tell me, You and you sister, its like its your job to go clubbing. Maybe five nights a week Id leave Brooklyn around 8:30 or 9 oclock. He slowed and turned around: Yeah, you too.. Bemelman's Bar at The Carlyle 128 Bars & Clubs Upper East Side Open now By M3088GQmarie Yes, the service is excellent, the atmosphere is lovely old fashioned, the music is good and the drinks are superb. A crack den lined with books. Certainly at night, few people were there, and few were there on the weekends. It was all exposed wood and brick, and it had a tiny fireplace, a futon, my books, a sink and a stove. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, a boy like me didnt know there was a place for him in the world like that. 2. And I just loved that experience. Even if it would attract the ladies, you couldnt give away an $8 IPA, a $15 Old Fashioned for free. Talk to the actors as they drifted in about your day, talk about whos auditioning for what. Youd sit at the bar and someone would say: Hey, were going to Danceteria. Or theyd have a car and youd find yourself in the East Village, which was a total war zone, with junkies passed out and men building fires in trash cans. Wednesdays and Thursdays were Ultimate Ladies Night with free Margaritas all evening, not to mention a gratis taco bar during happy hour. 1. There were very few artists there. No one could believe that this B-actor was about to occupy the White House. Now let me write mine. In October of that year, when I was back in New York, the Carters visited the city and Nan invited them to dine with us at Elaines [restaurant]. We just called it The Bar, which morphed into Ze Bar, like with a fake French accent. [The clothes] were really like one-plus-one, big squares with holes, basically. When I was 15, I was in the clubs. There were very few places to work out back then. Within 18 months, several more "singles bars" were opened on 1st Avenue. Zipped into a distressed red velvet number, I was the wacky blonde June Buntt, who liked to say the second T is silent. I was married to the astronaut Brad Buntt, who liked to say hed been in space for years now. The writer Dennis Cooper, in blue jean coveralls, was Mavis Purvis, a lesbian farmer living on a rural commune with her girlfriend. Were shooting one of the final scenes in Smithereens where the main character, Paul, talks to a hooker in his graffiti-covered van the film was very influenced by the graffiti art and punk scene of that time, particularly on the Lower East Side. I could wake up in the middle of the night and hear his typewriter going. Open in Google Maps. Our first goal [as Sonic Youth] was getting a gig at CBGB. 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. Not only did we dress in wigs and dresses from 14th Street, but we took on personas to match. The Mudd Club was right around the corner, going full throttle. To me, the 1980s were incredibly liberating. Bars would battle to get people in the doors., Then a bar on First Avenue, Far Out Lounge, came up with a gimmick that would change everything, with the ultimate idea to draw in the skirts that bring in the suits.. They were relatively small, rundown theaters; they tended to have a fair amount of drug use going on. Nobody was talking to him, probably because they didnt recognize him. I would just sit there. What the hell?. It was crazy. Whats she doing now? She was like [hyperventilating]. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. 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. 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. They put their names all over the mens room! The theater had been trashed. Have a good day. His hands were in his pockets now. Foursquare. My first loss was my partner, around the time Grace Kelly died in 1982. Photograph courtesy of Charlie Ahearn, whose groundbreaking hip-hop feature film Wild Style (1983) featured Grandmaster Flash, Lee Quiones and Fab 5 Freddy, among others. If I were going out that night, Id go see Garren to fix my hair. I said, To hell with it! Jasmine Guy auditioned; she wasnt of age yet. I was living at almost the exact point where the Village meets the East Village, in the Colonnade Row building, right across the street from the Public Theater. 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. By 1981, I was no longer the manager at [the East Village performance space] Club 57, but I still helped out and performed there a lot. We recorded at a studio called Greene Street Recording Studio on Greene Street between Houston and Prince. I was just out of high school. Every parent, every grown-up was your mother and father. We liked to get there early, which the club promoters loved because wed get the party started. Wed bring the coffee back to the lot and keep filming. They are not obliged to talk to anyone. Beware salivating yuppie swells there for Ladies Night, the magazine wrote (fondly) of Mannys Car Wash, a Chicago-style blues club on East 87th Street. Kamalis clothes cleverly combined athletic wear and fabric with high-fashion cuts and silhouettes, perfectly embodying the era. NR is a cocktail bar on the Upper East Side that serves inventive drinks and solid ramen. I had no student loans and the housing was still affordable. I didnt want anything to be more important than the writing. You simply traveled to where things were happening. He needed someone he trusted. Peter cant keep going that way, not in the city that its becoming now. But those deals enticed 22-year-olds to get out of their apartments. JAM gallery founder Linda Goode Bryant, circa 1981-82. Other times, it literally meant all-you-could-drink, whatever you wanted to drink, on every single night of the week. The apartment, at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street, was like a fantasy apartment huge, with a view of the reservoir. I tried to write every single day, first thing in the morning, 10 a.m. But it did make me very, very moody there were a lot of underground clubs, and they wouldnt jump off till 1 a.m. In the Early 80s, It Made All the Difference, Oral History: Remembering New Yorks Fiorucci Store, New Yorkers and Their 80s Routines Block by Block, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/t-magazine/80s-nyc-map.html, Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. That was the best place to get fresh bread and rugelach and sweets. His show was on at 1 a.m., after Johnny Carson. The demographics of the tony Upper East Side were likewise going through some radical changes post-1987s Black Monday market crash. When I first moved to the city, there was a garbage strike. I would then either go to work or go to an opening because Macys closed at 8:45 or something, so you had to move on. It wasnt actually the best place to hear or see bands, but it was always exciting. I was at the same place I am now, 222 Bowery. Some of the best bars on the Upper East Side cultivate the feeling of "Old New York.". Top Gay Clubs & Bars in Upper East Side (New York City) - Tripadvisor It was a very quiet audience. Patsy Cline. So the artists would often have free rein, and would sometimes sneak up to the roof, especially for the Fourth of July and other events like that. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth performing at CBGB in 1983. Flemings Reunion Party - MurphGuide: NYC Bar Guide My favorite was the Mine Shaft, a very performative kind of sex bar on Little West 12th Street that had a kind of punk, anti-disco vibe. Id dance until about two in the morning and then Id go back to work. People divided themselves into camps based on which one they favored I liked Odessa better, but Id go to both. Back then no one came in and said, Let me see your bar menu, says Block. I met Peter Hujar through Susan Sontag. Wed spend hours getting our outfits together buying stuff at Canal Plastics Center, stapling photo booth pictures onto our jackets. 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. Meanwhile, 25 new bars had opened between 76th and 96th Streets in the first years of the 1990s as well. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. One time a girl a teenager, maybe 15, 16 came in with her dad. In 1972, the New York State Human Rights Commission ruled that reduced-priced ladies days at Yankee Stadium discriminated against men. It had the best hamburgers and gin martinis. That is, until 2008 when Bennigan's went bankrupt. I would take my work from that lab it was already mounted with dimensions like 48 by 72 inches, 40 by 60 inches carry it to the E train, down the stairs, then get off at Canal and carry it down to Leonard and up my four flights of stairs. It needs to be said that, technically, ladies nights were illegal in New York and had been so for quite a time. Owner Sean Fleming's band was among the many popular bands that would perform there. Our 10 Best NYC Restaurants of the Last Two Centuries There was a place called Columbus, on Columbus Avenue and 69th Street. I would get back home [from school] at a decent hour, four in the afternoon. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. I could feel the presence of someone in the room. Youd have Chinese opera and then some kind of Russian circus act and then a punk band and then a drag queen. I started going to local clubs in Brooklyn at about 14 years old. If they didnt give us any food, wed go off to the next person. A lot of the alternative spaces Franklin Furnace, A-Space had music, too. Originally part of the Pillsbury Corp., the restaurant was founded in 1976. I was doing commercials and Ntozake Shanges For Colored Girls [For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf] I went on tour with that show, as part of the first national company. Ive gotta go to something, Bob will call you. I took the elevator down to the street and I saw a phone booth and the first thought that came to my mind was, Do not call any of your friends and tell them Andy Warhol is doing your book because I dont think thats for real. And sure enough, he didnt. And if we didnt have the money, wed go to the matre d it was absurd because this restaurant was in the middle of the slums and say, Can we pay you tomorrow? and theyd let us. Elaine's - Wikipedia We were in the habit of throwing parties on Saturday nights. Mos), a Tex-Mex slash surfer-themed bar with a totemistic statue of Geronimo the Apache Surfer hanging by the entrance and countless big screen TVs. Are you going to this? It was make coffee, check in and then get busy stripping wood. And the city wasnt so much about money. You can walk down the. Poets ruled the evening Tim Dlugos, still a few years from writing his haunting G-9 poem about an AIDS ward, was Bernadette of Lourdes. It was hard. Then it was getting a good time slot at CBGB, so you werent on last and werent on first. We had a prom, a debutante ball, a ladies wrestling night. Thurston Moore would take me to see hardcore groups like Black Flag. He goes, What the hell are you doing to my theater? When Canadian-born club impresario Peter Gatien came to New York City in the early '80s, after. The manager, Dorian Mecir, had a heart of gold. Jimmy Carters reputation was tarnished by the hostage crisis in Iran, and I feared that perhaps Norman Mailer, an Elaines regular, or some very politically active and argumentative individual, might stop by our table to express some unfavorable comments. The early 80s were sort of the beginning of serious gentrification. The weekend that it happened, I got a call at 2 oclock in the morning from the owner of the theater. On the east side of Lexington, between 78th and 79th, was the best fishmonger Ive ever known: Rosedale. (I might be the only person who never lived in a scary New York apartment. Very quickly, I realized it had potential to be a book. 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. Its a great show. We stared at each other for a moment. I had this idea I was going to be a writer; if I couldnt, there would be no point to my life. I lived at the Olympic Tower, and Halston was downstairs.. Linda Goode Bryant, founder of Just Above Midtown Gallery. The 1980s era of Wall Street expense accounts had evaporated as young professionals, for the first time in a while, actually had to pay for their own drinks. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. Todd didnt like the idea that I was doing a fanzine. I remember going to a gay club, and I totally bit their look: Daisy Duke shorts, combat boots and the half T-shirt all I did was add fishnet stockings. I loved things coming around and you had to grab them, like getting your luggage off a luggage rack. East Village 1980s | Ephemeral New York Peter lived on the absolute margins he never had anything. Dont come ringing my doorbell! I remember we would go from person to person. It was sort of 11 to 7. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. If it was a Thursday, Id be rushing to get all my work done, because that was the night I went dancing. And when she gave me the phone back, she went into [hysterics]. We were very, very thin. One of many iconic Upper East Side eateries owned by the Santo Family Group . (What a loft was, I wasnt entirely sure.) My apartment was four stories up, and I got a place on the floor below for Kim Gordon. A WRITER SHARES 1980'S UWS MEMORIES, AND ASKS FOR YOURS - West Side Rag If I threw a party, by midnight there was probably an especially good mix of people there. It was established, owned by and named after Elaine Kaufman, who was indelibly associated with the restaurant; Elaine's shut down several months after Kaufman died. Ave., NYC Her father said, Dap, my daughter, shes driving me crazy. Or his family didnt come, and the landlord put his work in a dumpster. 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. I would go to this rotary sushi place called Genroku. I mean, thats when Brooklyn was Brooklyn, not some extension of the West Village or a place with good coffee. upper east side bars 1980s - Binuli.ge And the hair. They were more McDermotts friends, because my friends were working in fashion and they were like, Oh, get a job, bitch! There was a great camaraderie. I felt like I was having the best entertainment of my life, because people were going up and down the aisle, going, Loose joints People were talking throughout the whole movie going, Yo, shut up! It was just like the kung fu movies they were the same audience. Id make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. Studio 54 was over after the owners, Steve [Rubell] and Ian [Schrager], got arrested in 1980, so we all migrated to the Mudd Club, on White Street. There were others: the Venus, and down in the 14th Street area, the Variety Photoplays, a Spanish one called The Jefferson, The Metropol [Metropolitan]. Elaine's was a bar and restaurant in New York City that existed from 1963 to 2011. I was also a regular at this neighborhood salon presided over by a Mr. Steve, who wore big, Coke-bottle thick glasses and was practically blind. I was 16 when we started going to the Roxy, and my guest list was 100 people, and we were kind of like the ornaments on the tree. My life was spiraling downward. Id go for two, three, four hours and have a fairly good time. May 6, 2009. 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. I lived at the Olympic Tower, and Halston was downstairs. He has one book but he doesnt have the next two. 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. Between 1981 and 1983 I was commuting between New York and a rented apartment in Rome, researching a book about my Italian ancestry that would be called Unto the Sons. My wife, Nan, would visit me in Italy as often as she could, but always briefly. One of his favorite pieces was the Alto Rhapsody of Brahms, sung by Dame Janet Baker. I doubt if many artists experienced it that way. But it had started with a simple idea: What if a bar just let women drink for free? And why I got out.. I had a loft downtown on Walker Street, one of the first buildings that went on loft strike. They could be stimulated by the heterosexual pornography that was on the screen. The bodegas played loud salsa music late into the night, as Dominican men played dominoes on the corner. More likely than not, Id have to go downtown to the garment center to get some fabric or trimming. The painter David Salle in his Manhattan studio, 1983. But, pre-AIDS anyway, it was also more diverse. Taste of a decade: 1980s restaurants - Restaurant-ing Through History Best upper east side bars 80\\\'s in New York, NY. It was [at the Pyramid Club] just one night, October of 1982, before the floodgates opened. And then off wed go! Today the Upper West Side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City. Then you would call at 10, or 10 after, to check in with your agent to see if there was anything going that day. It was right next to the Chelsea Hotel, where I was living. ), When we go out drinking, we go for broke, one man told The Times. Guthrie Inn on the other hand perfectly captures how living on the Upper East Side feels in reality; a bit isolated and quiet at times, a haven from downtown at other times, comfortable yet on the rise, and full of an interesting cast of characters.
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