Thurston was a scholar. Cities . Hear Christopher Walken talk about seeing movies during the day: One evening Kenny Scharf and his whole group which included Jean-Michel Basquiat, and certainly Keith Haring were hanging out at the artists studios at the Clocktower Gallery [in the former New York Life Insurance Company Building at Leonard Street and Broadway]. 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. She knew I was in dire straits; [by 1979] my landlord was getting squirrelly. Meanwhile, 25 new bars had opened between 76th and 96th Streets in the first years of the 1990s as well. I was preparing that summer to start my first semester at St. Johns University. I didnt smoke or drink, and when you dont do those things, you need an outlet. The 10 Best Bars On The Upper East Side - Culture Trip He goes, What the hell are you doing to my theater? I didnt know what I was doing. James Brown and Ali because of them, I basically became a made guy. These places were used largely by working-class men, white, black and Latino, people who thought of themselves as straight and gay, many of whom were amenable to sexual things. Youd see people that you hadnt seen in months in the street with KS [Kaposis sarcoma] lesions; people would just disappear. Before wine bars, bank branches, and sushi restaurants took over the East Village, there were hole-in-the-wall clubs like 8BC, a gallery and performance space on Eighth Street between Avenues B and C. Opened in 1983, the place was over by the end of 1985. Like Geronimos Bamba Bay Cafe (a.k.a. I tried never to leave my ZIP code. The deal with him was he never had to come and he never had to give any money, but he would give his name and a recommendation. Before that it had been pot. A WRITER SHARES 1980'S UWS MEMORIES, AND ASKS FOR YOURS - West Side Rag Mexican chain, which while not the inventor of the slush/frozen margarita, was legendary for them, especially their "Ridiculous", which was the size of a smal. We liked to get there early, which the club promoters loved because wed get the party started. Can you come back later? Up the street from my apartment was 8 B.C., a club run by two friends of mine. 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. The conversation was very interesting. The old downtown art scene was floundering, while some people, like Robert Mapplethorpe, had risen. If you remember Flemings, this event is for you: Saturday, December 4 Fleming's Reunion Party I had glasses, so I put these flip-up sunglass visors on them. Rival crews had been dancing in the subway, and it turned into a fight over who had won. I could feel the presence of someone in the room. One time a girl a teenager, maybe 15, 16 came in with her dad. I said, Im very happy for you, youre selling a lot of tickets. I was living uptown really the classic uptown, which, because I was young, seemed a little wild to some people with my kids and my mother (also, at that time I was in love with a Brazilian man Id met in Bali). There would be all of the amazing designer clothes that nobody wanted, that were too weird. He said he was going to lunch with some friends, and did I want to join? They paid me like a tenth of what they paid me to do the acting, and it became my whole life. The venues didn't matter to me. No one could believe that this B-actor was about to occupy the White House. Indeed, many of his customers would come from Normandie Court a block away. Williamsburg is like New York in the 70s. PM: We refused to take a job. 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. 1442 1st Avenue, New York, NY . Open in Google Maps. 1567 2nd Ave, New York, NY I would be coming back around 4, 4:30, 5 oclock sometimes 6. And yet, plenty of ladies were also against them. As Brad Lauren, a 23-year-old production assistant claimed at the time, having just paid $3.50 for a Miller Lite that ladies were drinking gratis: Its the most socially acceptable form of discrimination., By 1994 lines were down the block at Ski Bar every night and the police started to put up barricades to keep people off Second Avenue. I had this idea I was going to be a writer; if I couldnt, there would be no point to my life. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. There were so many actors who lived with us because we had five floors. Thelonious Monk or Nina Simone or Gloria Lynne would stop by to visit them, so I grew up around these real bebop superstars. Things were 50 times as bad in Brooklyn as they were in Manhattan. Darryl McDaniels, musician and member of Run-DMC. The area was really no-mans land. Come be a part of it. The doors would open and things would get going by 10, and by midnight it would be raging. We would sit at this coffee table and listen to records for an hour. The night was such a hoot we tried to reprise it a few times, but the tenor slid from hilarity to melodrama, and, like so many ecstasies of the era, soon just crumbled and fell apart. People like Jean-Michel [Basquiat] would come in, who was somebody you knew from Tier 3 and the Mudd Club; someone your age. I was like, Oh cool, youre doing art too? Bands would put up fliers all over SoHo; there were wheat-paste fliers everywhere. The Upper West Side has always been a great place to buy food, with terrific places for fish and vegetables. James Brown and the Rev. I had a horrible graveyard shift at a coffee shop, one of the only places to eat in Chelsea, open 24 hours super crickets, deserted. I was 19. I met David Bowie in 1982 at the Continental on West 25th Street, which had just opened. People would drop change in your hands, turn their heads when you tried to kiss them. Flemings Reunion Party - MurphGuide: NYC Bar Guide Amura ($$) Japanese Menu Available. Id go with Andy Warhol, or to dinner and then to Studio 54 afterwards. 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. If it was a Thursday, Id be rushing to get all my work done, because that was the night I went dancing. Once I saw someone selling a broken light bulb. 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. 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. When Flashdance came out in 1983, Paramount put me up in the Carlyle Hotel to do promotion. I could wake up in the middle of the night and hear his typewriter going. Someone broke the front glass and stole the poster. Ski Bar turned into a Taco Bell and Block moved to Telluride, Colo., where he and Singer opened a similar bar, Poachers Pub. The Upper East Side isn't the first or second or 12th neighborhood that comes to mind for fun late-night bars, but that doesn't mean you need to head across the park or 70 blocks south just to take 2am shots of tequila with strangers. Creative Time ran Art on the Beach on the landfill that is now Battery Park City back then it was just a huge field of sand. 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. They were sort of an island unto themselves, and then you went across the park and you had the Pyramid Club and everything else was bars until you got to the Mudd Club way downtown. The whole neighborhood was a lower-middle class suburban area. One (Instagram) showing somebody stumbling out of your bar and youre out of business, he believes. Police barricades up and down Second Avenue. hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. I would get back home [from school] at a decent hour, four in the afternoon. He needed someone he trusted. Live Psychic on East 84th offered free drinks and $10 tarot card readings from, yes, live psychics on a platform to the left of the dance floor, while single ladies shimmied to songs like Right Said Freds Im Too Sexy. While American Trash, a biker-themed bar, had literal garbage on the walls and ceiling. 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 didnt have a name. 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. Whats she doing now? She was like [hyperventilating]. Have a good day. His hands were in his pockets now. Clear all filters. I decided to start a music fanzine around 82; I called it Killer. When Todd wasnt looking, Id be running off copies and stapling them together. 16 Best Upper East Side Restaurants - Eater NY There was . Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. Carver came by, down from Syracuse on some publishing business. In a way, its ironic Ski Bar continues to have such a strong presence on social media as Block figures social media is the very reason why you dont see these types of bars and binge-a-rific drinking deals any more. I invited him to dinner. It was hard. He slowed and turned around: Yeah, you too.. The Penrosenamed for a neighborhood in Cork, Ireland, where two of the owners grew upbrings a bit of the indie-chic East Village to Gossip . This was a moment in Manhattan history that had never really been seen before and hasnt been seen since. Within a few days, he came to my apartment, which is how I wound up doing the arrangements for Lets Dance.. Everyone associates me with Jesse Jackson, but actually James Brown is the person I consider most like a mentor. His show was on at 1 a.m., after Johnny Carson. It was run by very old Jewish folks. 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 got up at anywhere from 3 to 5 in the morning and worked as long as I could. It had the best hamburgers and gin martinis. Peter had no small talk at all. There were lines around the block the theater starting bumping it up to a second and third screening. By the end of the relationship, I was living there. If they didnt give us any food, wed go off to the next person. Taste of a decade: 1980s restaurants - Restaurant-ing Through History 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. Honestly, my mind was empty, but I wanted to be consumed by that emptiness. I remember thinking, How long can this go on? In 1980, I was working as a staff photographer for the New York Post. Id go for two, three, four hours and have a fairly good time. Then there were the rumors that they were going to make a movie of the play, and naturally we all thought, Oh my god, were gonna be in a movie! But when the time came to make that movie, they only took Denzel, Larry, and Adolph. 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. One day, I was walking uptown to an appointment just before noon, and coming toward me was Robert Duvall. In those days, there wasnt any downtown, so life was much easier. But those deals enticed 22-year-olds to get out of their apartments. We never served any food, but we always had a couple cases of beer and a basic bar. You could feel it turning, the tackiness beginning to creep in. 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. He was in his preppy stage in those days, wearing button-downs, which really is hard to imagine now. I had no student loans and the housing was still affordable. East Village 1980s | Ephemeral New York The weekend that it happened, I got a call at 2 oclock in the morning from the owner of the theater. 'The 1970s club scene in New York was special': Nicky Siano It made me immobile. It was packed every night; it won the Pulitzer Prize that year. 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 . ), When we go out drinking, we go for broke, one man told The Times. Very quickly, I realized it had potential to be a book. Its until you pass out.. 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. The all-you-can-drink deals just dont happen these days, because the rents are so high, says Block. The city was different then. State records are incomplete. I just wanted to be in New York. The whole thing finally fell into place in May of that year when I went on Tom Snyders show on NBC. We said we were artists, and artists make art. Then we packed up our stuff, went back to the coffee shop to have breakfast and headed home. And the city wasnt so much about money. Whatever Happened to the Singles Bar? - PUNCH I lived at the Olympic Tower, and Halston was downstairs.. 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. Usually Id take the bus down to Mickeys [Chinese Chance] at 1 University Place, where Julian Schnabel was the cook. Broadway 96 [Club Broadway] was more geared to black and Latino youth and that was definitely a wilder place. Tuesday Trivia. We had a prom, a debutante ball, a ladies wrestling night. Wednesdays and Thursdays were Ultimate Ladies Night with free Margaritas all evening, not to mention a gratis taco bar during happy hour. An important place to have breakfast was Buffas, on the corner of Lafayette and Prince youd see Jim Jarmusch and Jonathan Demme in the booths there. Youd think he would have been the most outrageous-looking person there, but he looked like a businessman. But at midnight, yes, I was often out. 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. Originally part of the Pillsbury Corp., the restaurant was founded in 1976. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. The room I shared with two other students was on the top floor of the building facing the park. 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. 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. 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. 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. The silence, as they say, was deafening. All the music [in the atelier on 125th Street] came from the VCR. One place I went to a lot was the St. Marks Baths. I loved to walk down Clinton to Delancey I called it Rue de Rves because it was filled with bridal shops with garishly colored dresses. Gay and straight people would party together. 26 places sorted by traveler favorites Clear all filters 1. Denzel had just gotten St. The apartment was big, but the hall was in very bad repair, or at least looked it. Somebody might have called during the night to say they might have job opportunities, so you always checked your machine. 77 Restaurant memories 1970-90 ideas - Pinterest I loved things coming around and you had to grab them, like getting your luggage off a luggage rack. Their approach was direct and curt, no frills not self-consciously art-directed no frills, but Old Country, 19th-century no frills. East 80s, NY Restaurant Guide. You couldnt do nothing stupid or bad because your friends mother was your mother, too. So in April we held the Rites of Spring Fertility Bacchanal. Everywhere else it was club kids and b-boys with foxtails hanging from their clothes; I had the shoulder pads and the spiky hair and all that. As soon as he opened [his own place] I started working there, alongside Sara Driver [the filmmaker and partner of Jim Jarmusch]. 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. You could order a pizza anytime. Yorkville, Manhattan photos from the 1980s - Alamedainfo Sometimes it was just me and my sister walking up to the velvet rope or the bouncers, or it would be a group of us, and they would let us right in. Wed eat. We didnt know how the virus transmitted. I had just moved the gallery to Franklin Street in TriBeCa from West 57th Street. On NYCs Upper East Side, Ladies Night Ruled the 90s Until It Didnt | VinePair, https://vinepair.com/articles/ladies-night-wars-nyc/, wbs_cat Spirit, ladies\' night, laws, manhattan, women, Domaine Champalou Vouvray 2019, Loire Valley, France | VinePair, https://vinepair.com/good-wine-reviews/domaine-champalou-vouvray-2019-loire-valley-france/, wbs_cat Wine, wbs_type Vouvray, wbs_brand Domaine Champalou, chenin blanc, good wine, Vouvray. Not only did we dress in wigs and dresses from 14th Street, but we took on personas to match. 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. If we werent in a group, I would walk over the bridge, because money was scarce and I wanted to have a token to go back out the next night. Top 10 Bars & Clubs in Upper East Side (New York City) - Tripadvisor $5 all-you-can-drink that was my bar menu., 2014 - 2023 VinePair Inc. Made In NYC, Bartenders: Now's Your Chance To Experience Barbados. 2. 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. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I was hustling. That was the best place to get fresh bread and rugelach and sweets. Pretty girls in pajamas peeked in on my occupied space. Id dance until about two in the morning and then Id go back to work. Richard Gere was a fixture, as well as Diana Ross and Princess Caroline. This scrappy 16mm movie that people werent sure if it was a story movie or a documentary, everybody looked at it and said, I know that guy! They werent public figures; they were locally known graffiti artists, break-dancers, hip-hop M.C.s or D.J.s. Remembering the Lost Gay Bars of NYC - PAPER 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. Or wed go around to try to get breakfast from our friends, ringing doorbells to see who was up. There was always someone between apartments or someone coming to town who needed somewhere to stay. But some places were so beloved theyre still talked about fondly today. The Club Kids, led by impresario Michael Alig, turned places like the Limelight into backdrops of drug- and techno-induced drama, while live music dens like the Village Gate presented stages to. Separated from the commotion of the day, I would stretch my own canvases and start to paint in the dormitorys common room. I never wore gold jewelry I didnt want to be a target. 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. I had the gallery in L.A., and I had just bought a house in Venice, so I was completely overextended, and it worried me. The apartment, at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street, was like a fantasy apartment huge, with a view of the reservoir. I was living with my aunt and one of my cousins in a shotgun apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. The crass reason, of course, is because since the beginning of time, straight men have wanted to be drinking in the same place women are drinking because, yes, men are pigs. For one assignment, the paper sent me to Washington Heights to photograph what it said was a riot. Theyre exploiting women by using them to attract men, claimed its spokeswoman, Daveda Copeland. 68. It was a real neighborhood place, with people dropping in and hanging out, and a sort of day care center for neighbors who wanted us to watch their kids. (Never let on to a dog youre afraid of him, my Uncle Charlie would say.) 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. When AIDS hit, the lines were drawn: You were either straight or gay. The writer Gay Taleses social calendar for October 1983. It was all happening at the same time; there was a lot of yin and yang. Sometimes I would read him the weeks work. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. This bar, deep inside the St. Regis on Fifth Avenue, is one of the few New York hotel bars whose . But I had no idea what I was photographing. It was the three of us. I started spending a third of my time there. 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. I had to be at the theater by 7 oclock so I could start my process and get ready before half-hour call. Upstairs, the formally attired crowd (jackets required, gentlemen) dines on classic fare including the 21 Caesar Salad, Creamy Chicken Hash, and the ever-popular 21 Burger, which has been on the . I unlocked the door. 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. Ski Bar would issue custom-made lift tickets good for eight drinks apiece. In 1972, the New York State Human Rights Commission ruled that reduced-priced ladies days at Yankee Stadium discriminated against men. My apartment was four stories up, and I got a place on the floor below for Kim Gordon. Even if it would attract the ladies, you couldnt give away an $8 IPA, a $15 Old Fashioned for free. 1. Hed walk in and be perfectly comfortable with the Duke of Edinburgh. 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. People thought I was a little crazy. In retrospect, Bowie was ahead of the curve. I started going to local clubs in Brooklyn at about 14 years old. The early 80s were sort of the beginning of serious gentrification. You can walk down the. And, of course, so did the men. We just called it The Bar, which morphed into Ze Bar, like with a fake French accent. There were others: the Venus, and down in the 14th Street area, the Variety Photoplays, a Spanish one called The Jefferson, The Metropol [Metropolitan]. Belgian, Crepes, Wine Bar, Coffee Shop Menu Available. It's just happening. Not all these bars were necessarily beloved. There were problems, of course; you serve young men and women as much alcohol as they can humanly consume and theres bound to be. By 1984, Id put my kids in boarding school and left to live in Paris for five years. Next door to my apartment on East Eighth and Avenue C was the Green Oasis Community Garden, and I got involved with that.