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. Thats what happened at Club 57 a lot: We told people, This is the theme. The front window was a queer Mount Rushmore, with the heavyweights looking out onto the street: Rene Ricard, Bill Rice, Peter Hujar, Paul Thek. Patsy Cline. I had reached 30 and was having to face how hard it was going to be. It was just shattering, but of course I had to pretend that this was the surprise that I had brought my board to see. The artists Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham at their wedding, 1983. And the city wasnt so much about money. We didnt know how the virus transmitted. As Andy turned the pages, he said things like Oh, thats nice, Oh, that could be larger, Oh At the end of it, he said, Yes, I think we should do your book. If I were going out that night, Id go see Garren to fix my hair. Originally part of the Pillsbury Corp., the restaurant was founded in 1976. There was a popular Puerto Rican dance club, Ochentas, and across the street from that was an Afro-Cuban spot, Club Broadway. I tried never to leave my ZIP code. Every parent, every grown-up was your mother and father. One night, one horrible July Fourth, I invited the board members up to the roof, and I discovered 40 or 50 people at a party that I think Kenny had organized. 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. Adolph would regale us with stories. I was living on Eldridge Street between Hester and Grand. . Shan among its residents. When AIDS hit, the lines were drawn: You were either straight or gay. Rapping and fashion were being born at the same time. It was an incredible contrast from the last time I had lived in New York, when I was 17, during the summer of 1981, in a $500-a-month sublet loft that my boyfriend and I had found paging through our bible, the call to another life The Village Voice in his basement in Evanston. You did a lot of the auditions immediately. Wed been working on the film for a year in dribs and drabs. Then we packed up our stuff, went back to the coffee shop to have breakfast and headed home. We had a prom, a debutante ball, a ladies wrestling night. Very quickly, I realized it had potential to be a book. When I first moved to the city, there was a garbage strike. They were relatively small, rundown theaters; they tended to have a fair amount of drug use going on. Peter was so self-possessed and dignified, I never, ever thought of him as poor, even though he had no money. One day, I was walking uptown to an appointment just before noon, and coming toward me was Robert Duvall. Thats where youd run into people, share breakfast. Peter was straight out of Damon Runyon and Weegee. It was really like a combination of living theater and installation art, very communal. And the hair. We said we were artists, and artists make art. All the music [in the atelier on 125th Street] came from the VCR. 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. We were in the habit of throwing parties on Saturday nights. And thats why Block thinks youll never again see an era like the early 1990s on the Upper East Side. 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. Of course, it wasnt just rising rents, Mayor Giuliani, and smart phones that would kill ladies night on the Upper East Side. 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. Then you would call at 10, or 10 after, to check in with your agent to see if there was anything going that day. Nobody was talking to him, probably because they didnt recognize him. I was worried about how the crowd there would receive the Carters. Where To Drink On The Upper East Side . But were not going to complain.. One night I saw Jack Smith do a reading, and I can still remember this line, which kind of sums up that era: The cockroach caravan crosses the rented desert of exotic landlordism.. It didnt have a name. 1. I would go to these obscure classes around the city that were mostly for dancers. Thurston Moore would take me to see hardcore groups like Black Flag. Veselka was the go-to place to eat and get cake the lemon bundt or the mohn. 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. No ID check, nothing. It felt like there was all this dangerous energy. 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. It was at Avenue A and St. Marks Place, but the windows looked out on an air shaft, not the park. Darryl McDaniels, musician and member of Run-DMC. 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. 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. 26 places sorted by traveler favorites Clear all filters 1. Whats she doing now? She was like [hyperventilating]. May 6, 2009. See menus, reviews, ratings and delivery info for the best dining and most popular restaurants in East 80s. It was all exposed wood and brick, and it had a tiny fireplace, a futon, my books, a sink and a stove. Guide. A cracked bathroom mirror reflecting a sink full of discarded puffs, eyeliner brushes and trays of blush. ), When we go out drinking, we go for broke, one man told The Times. 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. And then eventually some surface decoration with tucks and treatment Id take the fabric and just sew in any direction. Sorry.. Landis shot the models one afternoon on the Upper East Side. I will never forget the day, because I didnt tell my mother and father that I was going to make a record. An unpublished male nude Polaroid from 1981 by photographer Tom Bianchi. Their approach was direct and curt, no frills not self-consciously art-directed no frills, but Old Country, 19th-century no frills. Back then no one came in and said, Let me see your bar menu, says Block. Mozart. He had two responses: Pretty good, was high, high praise. I dont even know if it was named AIDS at that point. The whole thing finally fell into place in May of that year when I went on Tom Snyders show on NBC. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I got a loft at Clinton and Stanton, which was far from fashionable. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. A walk across the Williamsburg Bridge just to save a subway token. Belgian, Crepes, Wine Bar, Coffee Shop Menu Available. The gallery space was on the first floor; our offices were in the basement. I tended to feel particularly safe in the theaters. In 1981, I had just gotten back from six months on the road with James Brown. 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. Wednesdays and Thursdays were Ultimate Ladies Night with free Margaritas all evening, not to mention a gratis taco bar during happy hour. Have a good day. His hands were in his pockets now. One of many iconic Upper East Side eateries owned by the Santo Family Group . Courtesy of John Kelly, photograph by John Dugdale, John Kelly, performance and visual artist. 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. [By 1 a.m.] Id be somewhere like [the TriBeCa No Wave club] Tier 3, seeing [the electronic Berlin band] Malaria!, and then walking over to Daves Luncheonette. Id make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. 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. James Brown and the Rev. Wendy Wild made magic mushroom punch. How you doin this morning?, He was young, dressed in jeans, and clearly shocked. Or worse. This was every Friday. Everyone associates me with Jesse Jackson, but actually James Brown is the person I consider most like a mentor. There was a studio near First Avenue in the 50s that used a dance technique that was a modified version of Pilates. We were just taken with each other. NR is a cocktail bar on the Upper East Side that serves inventive drinks and solid ramen. Peter cant keep going that way, not in the city that its becoming now. We were then escorted to a quiet table in the rear by the smiling proprietress herself, Ms. Elaine Kaufman, and joined by her good friend, the gregarious publicist Bobby Zarem, a city slicker born in Savannah, Georgia, who told Mr. Carter: Your brother Billy once called me a Yankee because Savannah is north of Plains. Norman Mailer wasnt there that night. 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. And then we had Robert Rauschenberg, a rascal and a great man. That is something I have never done with anyone else. Here are our favorites. The Penrose. In a letter about her trip, she wrote, When pages needed to be retyped, Jimmy did the retyping. I didnt want anything to be more important than the writing. That was the best place to get fresh bread and rugelach and sweets. I invited him to dinner. So wed be starving. There's always a striking contrast to what it was and what it is now. By 1968, there were a whopping 85 bars on the Upper East Side, most of them singles bars. 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. One of his favorite pieces was the Alto Rhapsody of Brahms, sung by Dame Janet Baker. Youd establish dialogue with great artists like Lawrence Weiner. Or with only a few comments in between. There is no limit to it. I was one of the champions of the golden age of promiscuity, though that all ended with AIDS. Guerrilla art activities took place all over. (What a loft was, I wasnt entirely sure.) There is a two drink minimum. 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. Within a few days, he came to my apartment, which is how I wound up doing the arrangements for Lets Dance.. The demographics of the tony Upper East Side were likewise going through some radical changes post-1987s Black Monday market crash. 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. Giuliani sending his goons around to raid things. Hip-hop artist Prince Whipper Whip of the hip-hop group Grand Wizard Theodore & the Fantastic Five at the Sparkle in the Bronx. Wed eat. Then we had Woody Allen. I didnt know anything. Some of them were lying about their age and I knew it, but I didnt care. We would sit at this coffee table and listen to records for an hour. So we were really supporting ourselves! The area was really no-mans land. In the 1980s, the restaurant began to decline, as it switched up menu items in favor of more chicken and fish. The landlord turned off the plumbing, so wed defecate into garbage bags and throw them out the window. A restaurant my wife and I definitely did not frequent was Elaines. I got so tired of getting mugged on my way home. He and I had dinner every night, and a stream of our friends, including Keith Haring and Debbie Harry, would join. Best upper east side bars 80\\\'s in New York, NY. 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. I could wake up in the middle of the night and hear his typewriter going. At Elaines, for instance, you would find people Elaine was floating. 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. There was always someone between apartments or someone coming to town who needed somewhere to stay. She rehabilitated a homeless man who panhandled outside the shop, and he became a model salesman. Two editors at Simon & Schuster thought it was terrific, but they said, You have to produce this yourself, and we can possibly get you a distribution deal. Sometimes wed have lunch. It was all happening at the same time; there was a lot of yin and yang. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. Foursquare. Our club-hop starts with the titular Limelight, Gatien's firstand still favoriteNew York club. 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. Learn more about historic floods. He said, Dap, whats she doing? I said, Shes gasping for air now! And I go attend to her. Although it didn't hold up against Chili's, TGI Fridays, and Applebee's, there was a time when it was fairly ubiquitous throughout the states. I was like, Oh cool, youre doing art too? Bands would put up fliers all over SoHo; there were wheat-paste fliers everywhere. It was crazy. Spanning the late 1980s through the late 1990s, . 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. Id work for 12 hours straight, prepping for my show at Barbara Gladstone Gallery. The quiet and space afforded clarity. Having had an alcoholic mother, he did not like being around people who drank much. It wasnt actually the best place to hear or see bands, but it was always exciting. It was nothing but rejection. 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. The. At night, if you headed south through long dark blocks to the meatpacking district, there were clubs and leather bars. Nan Goldin was a block up, and William Burroughs lived downstairs. Then you checked to see if there was anything in the theater papers for auditions. You could order a pizza anytime. We became sort of like brothers. This morning was no different than any other. Some of them were open 24 hours a day, or they were closed maybe four hours a day for cleaning. I tried to write every single day, first thing in the morning, 10 a.m. There would be all of the amazing designer clothes that nobody wanted, that were too weird. I lived on the quiet end of Hollis, Queens. Elsewhere, so he was going back and forth between doing the TV show and the play. It was raw: It had been a paper storage facility. When Flashdance came out in 1983, Paramount put me up in the Carlyle Hotel to do promotion. I went over and started chatting with him, and we became completely engrossed in this conversation about jazz. And we had Tina Chow, who had such unearthly beauty she would come into a room and just drift. In the summer of 1981 I was living with Gary Fisketjon, my best friend from college and my future editor at Random House. There was a place called Columbus, on Columbus Avenue and 69th Street. You could be a young person in Manhattan back then, Block recalls. She was the ultimate ballerina, and she became that on Fame. I was excited that I would be able to introduce this new band of gypsies to the Hollywood scene. My dormitory was at the corner of East 14th Street and Union Square. I existed like a soldier preparing for combat. I was living with my aunt and one of my cousins in a shotgun apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. We blacked out the skylights and windows and painted most of it gold very Warholian. And if I missed it, I felt really bad. On the other end of the spectrum, a growing mens rights movement would continue to try and put the kibosh on ladies night deals throughout Manhattan and the suburbs, even if their arguments werent necessarily made in good faith. We recorded at a studio called Greene Street Recording Studio on Greene Street between Houston and Prince. Book with OpenTable. 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. You couldnt do nothing stupid or bad because your friends mother was your mother, too. Hey, lets go get drunk at a bar.. I remember the smell of the theaters so well popcorn and weed. It was frequented by many celebrities, especially actors and authors. And Dynasty. Ive never gotten over Dynasty. And then people started dying. 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. And when she gave me the phone back, she went into [hysterics]. 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. In the 60s, it was only open to the high class and the rich, like authors up on the Upper East Side. Usually Id take the bus down to Mickeys [Chinese Chance] at 1 University Place, where Julian Schnabel was the cook. David McDermott and Peter McGough, artists. Hear Rosie Perez talk about her first time at CBGB: Six days a week I arrived every morning between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m. Or I would throw a party. I remember this night in particular because of another guest, Jack Henry Abbott, who was living in a halfway house a couple blocks away. The ultimate epitome of this wild, boozing-on-the-cheap era, Ski Bar, was located on Second Ave between 94th and 95th. In the '80s, 25 East 61st st. was home to B. Harris & Sons, jeweler to the stars! 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. I made sure there was a hot tub in there. 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. Then I would go to Macys and go to the $10 rack. Team Infatuation August 19, 2022. Gay and straight people would party together. That was the start of the end of this era, says Block. The original flier for Kellys show at the Pyramid Club in 1981. I had a loft downtown on Walker Street, one of the first buildings that went on loft strike. 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.. My first photo lab was called Hy Photo. 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. 1567 2nd Ave, New York, NY We blasted Talking Heads, Elvis Costello, Joe Jackson. Clear all filters. Mornings spent alone, writing in a studio in the West Village. (How many spinal taps can you give to someone under a refrigeration blanket whose fever wouldnt break?) 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. And, of course, so did the men. It was before he was onstage and all that; he was just starting out. The conversation was very interesting. 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. 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. As told to Kate Guadagnino,Elizabeth Gumport,Merrell Hambleton and Erin Sheehy. It had the best hamburgers and gin martinis. It was a brilliantly sunny day, and standing outside was Dustin Hoffman. By the end of the relationship, I was living there. He had always been like a surrogate father to me, and when his manager quit midway through the tour, he called me to come and just make sure people werent ripping him off at the venues every night. Its until you pass out.. Xerox art was big then, so people would come in to make photocopies and plaster them all over. 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. It would be drag queens with punk kids, musicians and artists everyone. 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. This was the scene at 2 a.m. on a Friday night in the spring of 1983 when my lover (as we called ourselves then), the film director Howard Brookner, and I threw the first of our preposterous Ladies Parties. Four days a week, I was studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute down on 15th Street. The title was an intentional lure the work wasnt about Grace Kelly, but the painter William Schwedler. Everyone I knew hated Reagan and couldnt wait for him to get out of office. Next door to my apartment on East Eighth and Avenue C was the Green Oasis Community Garden, and I got involved with that. The silhouette I was doing broad shoulders and thin hip was my way of reinterpreting masculine power, but with humor. I would go there every day to write. Then we hit the clubs: Sound Factory, the Roxy, the Fun House. It was still a sort of wild west that far uptown, and the facility was quickly dubbed Dormandie Court for the raucous, college-like atmosphere it had created and then fostered. We were such fashion victims. Hes a Leo all the Leos I know love history. 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. 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. Women would crowd around oil drums turned into tables and, while standing on sawdust floors, pound cheap beer and well liquor. She had made a video of herself dancing to LL Cool J. 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. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. Chloe 81 Night Clubs Dance Clubs Bars 6.7 Website Amenities: (212) 677-0067 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. This was a moment in Manhattan history that had never really been seen before and hasnt been seen since. So in April we held the Rites of Spring Fertility Bacchanal. (I might be the only person who never lived in a scary New York apartment. And Silk Road. The people who were chic, the downtowners, pretty much just wore black that could instantly give you a look. Thankfully, most seemed to only be of the public urination and inconsiderate noise variety, angering wealthy locals. By the early 1970s, 20 to 25 percent of American couples had met at a bar, according to Stanford University research. 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. As soon as he opened [his own place] I started working there, alongside Sara Driver [the filmmaker and partner of Jim Jarmusch]. 1. It was hard. A guy in a black cocktail dress teetering precariously on the sill of an open window in a rear apartment (Room 410) of the Chelsea Hotel, screaming into the night. Meanwhile, 25 new bars had opened between 76th and 96th Streets in the first years of the 1990s as well. My habit must have appeared bizarre to my peers. I returned to New York in 81 after 10 years as an expat. Her upstairs neighbor was artist Dan Graham, who I knew through the artist-poet Vito Acconci. 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. Someone broke the front glass and stole the poster. People would bring me their videos to pop in. Lines around the block. 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. Wed bring the coffee back to the lot and keep filming. Or wed go around to try to get breakfast from our friends, ringing doorbells to see who was up. The Landmarks That Made New York a Cultural Capital, Uptown or Downtown? We could each get a full breakfast scrambled eggs, hash browns, whole wheat toast with an endless cup of coffee for $5 with tip. Broadway 96 [Club Broadway] was more geared to black and Latino youth and that was definitely a wilder place. That was Sucker M.C.s., I was still living at home. He slowed and turned around: Yeah, you too.. You could work, then not work for a while, get by. And the rest of us were kinda like, Oh man, what? And I got in trouble because I didnt get home until like 1 or 2 in the morning. 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. He claims the resort-area locals didnt know what to do with him when he began offering the same all-you-can-drink, ladies night-type deals. Sometimes, after the clubs got out, people would see a kung fu flick on 42nd Street, which we called the Deuce Were going to the Deuce, whats up? I got my apartment through Stanley Strychacki, the founder of Club 57. And yet, Ski Bars five-year run from 1990 until 1995 remains so memorable that close-knit regulars, many with adult children by now, continue to maintain a Facebook group to swap stories, and uniquely 90s photos from the era. Ann Magnuson performing at Kenny Scharfs opening atop his Ultima Suprema Deluxa Cadillac on November 14, 1983. I mean, thats when Brooklyn was Brooklyn, not some extension of the West Village or a place with good coffee. Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. I had no reason to stay awake or to fall asleep. If you wanted fancy, youd go to La Grenouille. Youd walk in there and all the actors would be sitting around, it was almost like a club, and youd see all these people: Danny Aiello, Warren Beatty. The Roxy was on Fridays, when the party was Wheels of Steel, which initially started at Negril in the East Village. Wed go to bed among the broken glass, booze and old cigarettes. My first loss was my partner, around the time Grace Kelly died in 1982. 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. East 80s, NY Restaurant Guide. draw in the skirts that bring in the suits. Now nothings open after 11. It was 1990 on Manhattans Upper East Side and, after the extravagant 1980s, the neighborhood was in the throes of a countrywide recession and unemployment was on the rise.