I would go to this rotary sushi place called Genroku. 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. 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. 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. He would maybe drink half a glass of wine. And when my mother asked me where I was at, I just said, Oh, I was in the attic.. Id make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. There was a theater called the Capri that I went to a lot. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. 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. See menus, reviews, ratings and delivery info for the best dining and most popular restaurants in East 80s. 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. Like the Womens Christian Temperance Union. 26 places sorted by traveler favorites Clear all filters 1. It was all exposed wood and brick, and it had a tiny fireplace, a futon, my books, a sink and a stove. Belgian, Crepes, Wine Bar, Coffee Shop Menu Available. 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. We were just taken with each other. Even if it would attract the ladies, you couldnt give away an $8 IPA, a $15 Old Fashioned for free. The front window was a queer Mount Rushmore, with the heavyweights looking out onto the street: Rene Ricard, Bill Rice, Peter Hujar, Paul Thek. We did a deep dive into the most avant-garde, atonal jazz. And, of course, so did the men. Their approach was direct and curt, no frills not self-consciously art-directed no frills, but Old Country, 19th-century no frills. A lot of very creative, brilliant people were living in rough places downtown, which was dangerous but cheap, but I never did. The room I shared with two other students was on the top floor of the building facing the park. Or his family didnt come, and the landlord put his work in a dumpster. I committed the tapes to memory; I would do them over and over. In the summer of 1981 I was living with Gary Fisketjon, my best friend from college and my future editor at Random House. The quiet and space afforded clarity. At night, if you headed south through long dark blocks to the meatpacking district, there were clubs and leather bars. Back uptown, Mortimers restaurant was a huge place for me. 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. Rich New York in the late 90s | Vanity Fair In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. Whether you were struggling, successful or just plain lucky, these stories remind us that in these years New York City dirty, dangerous, derelict, dazzling was the only place to be. The loft was across the street from Castelli [Gallery]. 1567 2nd Ave, New York, NY 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. Youd have Chinese opera and then some kind of Russian circus act and then a punk band and then a drag queen. He wasnt exactly made of money, though he fished through a bucket of change every morning to buy his one meal of the day, a bagel but Block claims this was a time when it didnt cost a ton to open and run a bar in Manhattan. 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. One of his favorite pieces was the Alto Rhapsody of Brahms, sung by Dame Janet Baker. Before that it had been pot. In 80, I got a job at Todds Copy on Mott Street. Certainly at night, few people were there, and few were there on the weekends. And yet, over the years, bars continued to try to offer ladies night deals (whether discounted or completely free drinks) and various factions had tried to stop them. Lines around the block. 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. Id been divorced and on my own since 1977 I had started the business with my husband a decade earlier and it felt like women were waking up. I slept when I was exhausted and awoke when I was refreshed. Darryl McDaniels, musician and member of Run-DMC. Some of them were lying about their age and I knew it, but I didnt care. By the end of the relationship, I was living there. You would go up to the club and then you would look for a friend, like, Wheres so-and-so? Oh, he got the thing; he got the sickness. It would just ruin your night. 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. We recorded at a studio called Greene Street Recording Studio on Greene Street between Houston and Prince. Did you come to see the show? 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. Learn more about historic floods. Sometimes I didnt eat for two days. Mom says that your apartment looks like a crack den, my daughter told me once. Occasionally, a costumed employee they dubbed Jgerman would appear from the back wielding bottles of the potent German digestif in his hands, which he then free-poured into ladies mouths as the crowd chanted his theme song: Jgerman, Jgerman, if you cant drink it, no one can!, It was like feeding baby birds, recalls Capobianco. 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. It was a total nexus. Then you would call at 10, or 10 after, to check in with your agent to see if there was anything going that day. Wed bring the coffee back to the lot and keep filming. At that time, Chelsea was unexplored territory. There were all these conspiracy theories. I had glasses, so I put these flip-up sunglass visors on them. We were outside the Mine Shaft [a raunchy 1970s/'80s gay sex club on Washington Street]. I figure its costing me two bucks to put a girl in my bar for two hours, Reynolds claimed at the time. I would walk around the neighborhood, go down to 42nd Street and do a lot of movie cruising. He and I had dinner every night, and a stream of our friends, including Keith Haring and Debbie Harry, would join. I had reached 30 and was having to face how hard it was going to be. There was . Once I saw someone selling a broken light bulb. I got my first loft in what was called Lower Manhattan before it was renamed the Triangle Below Canal, which was the realtors term that became TriBeCa, in 1967. The bodegas played loud salsa music late into the night, as Dominican men played dominoes on the corner. They called it rocking early breaking, essentially. Peter was so self-possessed and dignified, I never, ever thought of him as poor, even though he had no money. Everyone I knew hated Reagan and couldnt wait for him to get out of office. I never had to show the clothes I was making to a buyer, because they always saw it in the clubs first: at Danceteria, at Roxy, at Kool Lady Blues Friday-night party. 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). They were on 51st or 52nd between Fifth and Madison. 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. And the director, Charles Fuller, was like, No, youre not really ready you just think you are! Everybody was anxious to do it for an audience, so by the time we opened, it was amazing. It was like a village, yknow? Very quickly, I realized it had potential to be a book. Boozy, drug-fueled parties that lasted until dawn. It was a brilliantly sunny day, and standing outside was Dustin Hoffman. Taylor Mead had a running tab at multiple bars. Caribbean Restaurants Restaurants. Hey, lets go get drunk at a bar.. If it was a Thursday, Id be rushing to get all my work done, because that was the night I went dancing. I didnt know anything. I couldnt, but I did turn around and walk with him for some blocks to the restaurant. Basically, we walk in, get our free drinks, give the scum dirty looks and walk out, a college student named Rebecca said of the Far Out Lounge. I was one of the champions of the golden age of promiscuity, though that all ended with AIDS. (How many spinal taps can you give to someone under a refrigeration blanket whose fever wouldnt break?) Columbia Pictures had given me this SX-70 camera at a conference, and I started documenting life in the Fire Island Pines [an area of Long Island known as a haven for gay life], which just seemed very important to me. I could feel the presence of someone in the room. I couldnt work in color because I couldnt afford to make color prints. Peter was straight out of Damon Runyon and Weegee. I held auditions for Fame, the TV show, on a Sunday at the New York School of Ballet because thats where I trained, and Mr. Thomas [ballet dancer Richard Scott Thomas] was happy to give me a studio. I doubt if many artists experienced it that way. 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. One (Instagram) showing somebody stumbling out of your bar and youre out of business, he believes. Somebody might have called during the night to say they might have job opportunities, so you always checked your machine. Wed go: Look, even if you dont know how to strip wood, were gonna show you: This gooey mess that you have to brush on the wood, wait till it bubbles, then you scrape it off. Most mornings, we would wake up and check the answering machine. There was likewise Brother Jimmys, a Southern BBQ joint that served overproof punch out of rubber garbage pails. Best 30 80s Night Clubs in New York City, NY with Reviews - Yellow Pages The artist David McDermott shot by his then-partner, the artist Peter McGough, East Village, 1983. The ultimate epitome of this wild, boozing-on-the-cheap era, Ski Bar, was located on Second Ave between 94th and 95th. It was right next to the Chelsea Hotel, where I was living. Mozart. 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. The restaurants where mobsters gathered, ate and got murdered East Side Extra: Footloose: A virtual walk through the 1980s Upper East I would drink quite a lot of wine. It was a very different kind of neighborhood from the one I grew up in in Harlem just starting to be gentrified. Then I would go to Macys and go to the $10 rack. May 6, 2009. Thats pretty good.. Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. My first loss was my partner, around the time Grace Kelly died in 1982. Like Outback, an Australian-themed bar on 93rd and Third Avenue, which hosted Men Are Pigs nights three times a week. In the mornings, usually around 11 a.m., Id go to one of the coffee shops around the corner on Avenue A. Odessa was one, and Leshkos was the other. Photograph: Paul Wagtouicz. The whole reason I was able to raise money for my causes was because of him. Those who set the tone you had to have an outfit from me. In 1972, the New York State Human Rights Commission ruled that reduced-priced ladies days at Yankee Stadium discriminated against men. I would go there every day to write. Guerrilla art activities took place all over. 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. 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. And the food at Genroku was really cheap, which was the operative word. In the lot there are three vehicles. It was run by very old Jewish folks. I was living with my aunt and one of my cousins in a shotgun apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. I unlocked the door. This kind of activity is highly socially ordered: You dont barge in on other people, thats all part of it. In the 1980s, the restaurant began to decline, as it switched up menu items in favor of more chicken and fish. He said, Dap, whats she doing? I said, Shes gasping for air now! And I go attend to her. 77 Restaurant memories 1970-90 ideas - Pinterest Bars & Music Mama's Bar. There were very few artists there. Having had an alcoholic mother, he did not like being around people who drank much. A few blocks away was the Ninth Street Bakery. Jane Fonda had recently released her workout tapes, and it was the first opportunity a lot of women had to exercise. 16 Best Upper East Side Restaurants - Eater NY Wed go to bed among the broken glass, booze and old cigarettes. Wed eat. Up the street from my apartment was 8 B.C., a club run by two friends of mine. I was kind of tomboyish, but also pretty poor. One time a girl a teenager, maybe 15, 16 came in with her dad. At Elaines, for instance, you would find people Elaine was floating.