Gracie Terrace, New York, NY (212) 535-3140 (212) 535-3140. Then our leading lady, Susan Berman, broke her leg, and we had to wait for her to get out of the cast. (What a loft was, I wasnt entirely sure.) When youre at a memorial mourning the passing of a friend or a lover and theyre really young, where do you put that stuff? Like Geronimos Bamba Bay Cafe (a.k.a. Across the street from my apartment was the McBurney Y.M.C.A., so that was my gym, and halfway down the block was something called the Squat Theatre, home to an avant-garde Hungarian troupe, and kind of a drug spot. The apartment, at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street, was like a fantasy apartment huge, with a view of the reservoir. There is a two drink minimum. I did not know what my passions or imagination would lead to. When I was 15, I was in the clubs. Peter cant keep going that way, not in the city that its becoming now. 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. But something wasnt right. . 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. Some of them were open 24 hours a day, or they were closed maybe four hours a day for cleaning. The quiet and space afforded clarity. High-end lounges and clubs were beginning to pop up downtown, especially around the flourishing Meatpacking District, and if plenty of ladies would continue to drink for free at places like Lot 61, Moomba, Spy Bar, and Marquee, it was the male customers who were usually paying for the overpriced bottles of Grey Goose and Patrn. It was a total nexus. 1. I was breaking up with somebody a long, slow breakup. It was in this desolate area between TriBeCa and Chinatown, and I knew every alley. They paid me like a tenth of what they paid me to do the acting, and it became my whole life. Youd have Chinese opera and then some kind of Russian circus act and then a punk band and then a drag queen. This was a moment in Manhattan history that had never really been seen before and hasnt been seen since. I was living with my aunt and one of my cousins in a shotgun apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. There was a lot of crossover, because ours would go to 6 or 7 in the morning some god-awful time. Best Upper East Side bars in NYC. People thought I was a little crazy. I was always worried about getting a dirty shirt or chipping a tooth., Ski Bars biggest attraction was the Slalom Shot, a four-foot-long slab of ice with a twisting trail cut into it. (Never let on to a dog youre afraid of him, my Uncle Charlie would say.) The first single we ever made [was in 1983]: Sucker M.C.s was the B-side of Its Like That. Its Like That was a record that was talking about all of the things that was going on in communities, society and also the world. 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. 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. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. So when they talked to me about playing the character Lydia Grant, the dance teacher, I said, Yes, I would be so interested if I could also be responsible for the choreography. Because by this time, I had been developing as a choreographer, working with the Henry Street Playhouse and the New York Shakespeare Festival, and I really loved doing it. It was chaired by Brendan Gill, a great theater critic and architecture writer. Pierre Francillon and Richard Alvarez, both artists and friends of fashion designer Andre Walker, in 1983 at the Middle Collegiate Church, where Walker held a fashion show. You did a lot of the auditions immediately. The sidewalks along St. Marks over to Astor Place were just as lively they were a sort of souk where you could buy back what the junkies had stolen from your apartment. Talk to the actors as they drifted in about your day, talk about whos auditioning for what. Thurston Moore would take me to see hardcore groups like Black Flag. And then eventually some surface decoration with tucks and treatment Id take the fabric and just sew in any direction. Queens: PS1, the site of the era-defining exhibit New York/New Wave (1981); Queensbridge Houses, public housing that counted Juice Crew founder Marley Marl and rapper members Roxanne Shant and M.C. Upper East Side Aug. 11, 1972 It was a case of mistaken identity, revenge for the sensational rubout of Joey Gallo at Umberto's four months earlier, only this one led to two innocent meat. Dont come ringing my doorbell! I remember we would go from person to person. An unpublished male nude Polaroid from 1981 by photographer Tom Bianchi. I would be coming back around 4, 4:30, 5 oclock sometimes 6. By the end of the relationship, I was living there. I remember being in someones loft it might have been [artist] Brian Hunts with a group of friends, watching the inauguration on a little black-and-white television. Guerrilla art activities took place all over. When I really started hanging out in Manhattan, the primary place for my crew was Rock Steady Park [Happy Warrior Playground] on 98th and Amsterdam. We became sort of like brothers. A lot of it was crack. I just wanted to be in New York. 1. Clear all filters. 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. There were still hookers, male and female, on the street, and vendors selling potted plants and gigantic stuffed animals under the rubble of the West Side Highway at all hours of the night. Owner Sean Fleming's band was among the many popular bands that would perform there. Youd press your lips to the bottom and Slalom Girls would pour a combo Jaeger/tequila shot that would shush down the slope and into your face. These are the moments, large and small, recounted by 36 writers, artists, fashion designers, musicians and more who. To me it was all an art project. 2. I had this idea I was going to be a writer; if I couldnt, there would be no point to my life. But, pre-AIDS anyway, it was also more diverse. This was our morning ritual: Wed wake up, and if we had $5 on us wed go to the 103 Restaurant on Second Avenue and Sixth Street. It was a walk-up. Today hes in his mid-50s and out of the bar business entirely. Brandy's Piano Bar. My parents were heroin addicts, beatniks. The era might have been old New Yorks last real gasp a time when the very streets, dirty and unsafe as they were, seemed infused with possibility. The manager, Dorian Mecir, had a heart of gold. He has one book but he doesnt have the next two. Mornings spent alone, writing in a studio in the West Village. There was a place called Columbus, on Columbus Avenue and 69th Street. You wanted to be there when it was happening, and then youd migrate at around 2:30 to an after-hours club. Theyre exploiting women by using them to attract men, claimed its spokeswoman, Daveda Copeland. The old downtown art scene was floundering, while some people, like Robert Mapplethorpe, had risen. I realized I had to leave. Thats where youd run into people, share breakfast. I would go to this rotary sushi place called Genroku. We were shooting the pilot, and I was trying to find the best dancers I could. Then you checked to see if there was anything in the theater papers for auditions. Women would crowd around oil drums turned into tables and, while standing on sawdust floors, pound cheap beer and well liquor. One day, I was walking uptown to an appointment just before noon, and coming toward me was Robert Duvall. I just left the house on a Sunday, went to make the record. Every parent, every grown-up was your mother and father. But at midnight, yes, I was often out. I had gone to a place when I was a kid called Hamburger Express, and the hamburgers used to come around on a little choo-choo train. He was like the Jimmy Fallon or Trevor Noah of that era. I suppose I should have loved New York; things were very good for me. I never saw that before and hed never experienced that. Wed say, Theyre not up in the morning, so dont go to them or They have kids, so maybe theyre up because the kids wake up. Wed visit people in the morning, early. The oppressively hot and always jam-packed Ski Bar was so crazy The New York Times compared its atmosphere to that of a beer commercial, and nightly there were sweaty singles dancing and drinking with unbridled enthusiasm. If I were going out that night, Id go see Garren to fix my hair. The venues didn't matter to me. They would shy away with confused expressions, whispering to their friends. Hip-hop artist Prince Whipper Whip of the hip-hop group Grand Wizard Theodore & the Fantastic Five at the Sparkle in the Bronx. I remember this night in particular because of another guest, Jack Henry Abbott, who was living in a halfway house a couple blocks away. I got a loft at Clinton and Stanton, which was far from fashionable. There were very few places to work out back then. 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. They were supposed to be 17 or 18. JAM gallery founder Linda Goode Bryant, circa 1981-82. In the mornings, Id walk along 125th Street to the store, which I opened in 82. The robust economy powered unfathomable riches into New York's in the late 90s: In SoHo restaurants, Madison Avenue boutiques, and East Side real-estate offices, no price is too high for the lords . Part of how they paid us was they had to strip some wood the house had five fireplaces, and the foyer was original, and all wood. It was right next to the Chelsea Hotel, where I was living. When I first moved to Manhattan I was eager to get back to the Bronx as often as possible, so I would go to the Pathmark on 207th Street and pack bags to try to make change. The Ladies Auxiliary of the Lower East Side sort of a punk rock version of my mothers Junior League group, which I started with some other girls from the East Village hosted several events at the club. It was all happening at the same time; there was a lot of yin and yang. It didnt have a name. The Roxy was on Fridays, when the party was Wheels of Steel, which initially started at Negril in the East Village. And Bowie had no idea that was my background. We didnt know how the virus transmitted. Even if it would attract the ladies, you couldnt give away an $8 IPA, a $15 Old Fashioned for free. To me, the 1980s were incredibly liberating. Coming from China, I was eager to be accepted in this new environment, which felt like a monstrous machine indifferent, its frenetic energy fueled by ambition. I did shows in there at night, including the first solo show David Salle ever had. Kamalis clothes cleverly combined athletic wear and fabric with high-fashion cuts and silhouettes, perfectly embodying the era. Everything had my initials on it, or the name of somebody else on it; it was really crazy. My days changed depending on what show I was putting on, what sort of rehearsal schedule I had and how late Id been up the night before, though I had a rule for myself: Always be back before sunrise. It was like a village, yknow? It was crazy. Lobster Newburg as it looks today. His show was on at 1 a.m., after Johnny Carson. She was very busy editing books of her own, among them Jane Fondas Workout Book, Thomas Keneallys Schindlers List, Margaret Atwoods Bluebeards Egg and Rosalynn Carters memoir First Lady From Plains. At one point Nan traveled to the Carters home in Plains, Georgia, an ordinary split-level with an imperial iron fence that had been Richard Nixons from Key Biscayne (the Carters didnt believe in waste). When Canadian-born club impresario Peter Gatien came to New York City in the early '80s, after. We liked to get there early, which the club promoters loved because wed get the party started. The Upper East Side was the place to party in the early 1990s, recalls Jennifer Capobianco, a bartender from the era. Madison Pub was an indispensable local dive. When Flashdance came out in 1983, Paramount put me up in the Carlyle Hotel to do promotion. On July 11, the guests included novelists Harold Brodkey, Mona Simpson, Richard Price and Scott Sommer (who might be better known if he hadnt died at 42). Today the Upper West Side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City. During this period, Manhattan was where the action was, but there were exceptions to the rule: The Bronx: The Writers Bench, a meeting point where graffiti writers would watch passing trains adorned with their work; Disco Fever, the hip-hop club where Run-DMC played their first show; Fashion Moda, a community-minded art space that showed work by emerging artists including Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lady Pink and Jane Dickson. May 6, 2009. I was in my early 30s, and I had Tatiana and Alex, my children, so I didnt stay out until dawn like I had in the 1970s. Id get to the gallery late afternoon. There was an interest beyond becoming ladies who lunch. Everyone talks about the 1970s as being the birth of feminism, but for me, the 80s were really about feminism in practical use. They were more McDermotts friends, because my friends were working in fashion and they were like, Oh, get a job, bitch! Youd think he would have been the most outrageous-looking person there, but he looked like a businessman. Michael Gira, the frontman of the band Swans, was on the [first] cover. And we had Tina Chow, who had such unearthly beauty she would come into a room and just drift. Things were 50 times as bad in Brooklyn as they were in Manhattan. There were problems, of course; you serve young men and women as much alcohol as they can humanly consume and theres bound to be. And then there were athletes and New York characters a bunch of people who I didnt know what they did, I just knew I saw them all the time. They were on 51st or 52nd between Fifth and Madison. I didnt smoke or drink, and when you dont do those things, you need an outlet. 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. 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. It made the general public aware that people were dying in Brooklyn, in Harlem, in the Bronx. The title was an intentional lure the work wasnt about Grace Kelly, but the painter William Schwedler. 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. Wed eat. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, a boy like me didnt know there was a place for him in the world like that. I said, Im very happy for you, youre selling a lot of tickets. And Im not a corporate client, so please give me a break. We were in the habit of throwing parties on Saturday nights. He said, Dap, whats she doing? I said, Shes gasping for air now! And I go attend to her. I think that free drinks for women is discriminatory and a bad idea, wrote Cynthia Heimel, a feminist columnist, in the November 1991 issue of Playboy. I slept when I was exhausted and awoke when I was refreshed. Are you going to this? It was make coffee, check in and then get busy stripping wood. At the end of the night I would walk all the way home. hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. People used to say, The East Village will be gone when theres a Gap, and then, in the late 80s, one opened on the corner of St. Marks and Second Avenue. But I had no idea what I was photographing. By the early 1970s, 20 to 25 percent of American couples had met at a bar, according to Stanford University research. Belgian, Crepes, Wine Bar, Coffee Shop Menu Available. I didnt want to fit in. The artists Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham at their wedding, 1983. Patsy Cline. Upper East Side. Within a few days, he came to my apartment, which is how I wound up doing the arrangements for Lets Dance.. You werent afraid of getting it, you were wondering when are the symptoms going to show up. Wed go to bed among the broken glass, booze and old cigarettes. Id go with Andy Warhol, or to dinner and then to Studio 54 afterwards. Normandie Court, a complex of four 34-story beige towers occupying the entire block bounded by East 95th and 96th Streets and Second and Third Avenues, opened around then, offering dirt cheap rent. And the food at Genroku was really cheap, which was the operative word. There's always a striking contrast to what it was and what it is now. I would go to school, come home, clean the house, babysit my second and third cousins, hang out on the stoop, wait for my aunt to come home, have dinner with her and wait until she fell asleep then I broke out. Somebody might have called during the night to say they might have job opportunities, so you always checked your machine. Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. Everyone writes that I was his tour manager, but thats not what it was. We made an altar to a llama, and everyone dressed in kind of Greco-Roman outfits I wore a toga with sequins. People divided themselves into camps based on which one they favored I liked Odessa better, but Id go to both. I made a short performance called Life Without Grace, a kind of eulogy. These parties inevitably blur together in my mind, but I remember that night because a week later, Abbott stabbed and killed a waiter at the Binibon cafe, a few doors down the block.