(What a loft was, I wasnt entirely sure.) One day, I was walking uptown to an appointment just before noon, and coming toward me was Robert Duvall. That completely opened my mind. Guide. 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. My sense of time was completely distorted. Friday's location on the Upper East Side. 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. Courtesy of John Kelly, photograph by John Dugdale, John Kelly, performance and visual artist. I got up at anywhere from 3 to 5 in the morning and worked as long as I could. I didnt smoke or drink, and when you dont do those things, you need an outlet. I just left the house on a Sunday, went to make the record. 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. 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. It seems we could start later than this. They were spinning on their heads, the cops said. There would be 200 people in there. Four days a week, I was studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute down on 15th Street. You would have Rock Steady Crew and Zulu Nation on one side of the room, and this notorious gang called the Ball Busters on the other. You did a lot of the auditions immediately. 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. I never wore gold jewelry I didnt want to be a target. So wed be starving. I dont even know if it was named AIDS at that point. See menus, reviews, ratings and delivery info for the best dining and most popular restaurants in East 80s. Then, I didnt have the kind of formal board that one would today. And right away we see David Bowie, wearing a suit and sitting completely by himself in one of the hottest new clubs in the city. 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. 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.. 2. Alanna Heiss, founder of PS1 and the Clocktower Gallery. Nearby spots like Bear Bar began capitalizing on the traffic by offering their own competing ladies night deals. When we went out it was to perform. And then off wed go! We just called it The Bar, which morphed into Ze Bar, like with a fake French accent. 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. The Mudd Club was right around the corner, going full throttle. I worked part-time for gallerist Annina Nosei. Whats she doing now? She was like [hyperventilating]. I started going to local clubs in Brooklyn at about 14 years old. I had reached 30 and was having to face how hard it was going to be. I started JAM in 1974 to show the work of African-American artists and other artists of color. Even by the early 1990s, the Upper East Side remained haunted by what had happened there in 1986, when the infamous Preppy Killer, Robert Chambers, had pounded tequila and beer chasers at. My habit must have appeared bizarre to my peers. Her upstairs neighbor was artist Dan Graham, who I knew through the artist-poet Vito Acconci. 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. Steve Landiss photograph for fashion designer Norma Kamalis 1981 Sweats campaign. They were relatively small, rundown theaters; they tended to have a fair amount of drug use going on. Everyone associates me with Jesse Jackson, but actually James Brown is the person I consider most like a mentor. 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. So in April we held the Rites of Spring Fertility Bacchanal. It was right next to the Chelsea Hotel, where I was living. Sorry.. I slept when I was exhausted and awoke when I was refreshed. Open in Google Maps. I could feel the presence of someone in the room. 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. 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. The apartment was big, but the hall was in very bad repair, or at least looked it. Every night was a huge passeggiata with people perusing the blankets. 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. Thankfully, most seemed to only be of the public urination and inconsiderate noise variety, angering wealthy locals. This kind of activity is highly socially ordered: You dont barge in on other people, thats all part of it. I had just moved the gallery to Franklin Street in TriBeCa from West 57th Street. 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. 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. Talk to the actors as they drifted in about your day, talk about whos auditioning for what. I was 19. There was a popular Puerto Rican dance club, Ochentas, and across the street from that was an Afro-Cuban spot, Club Broadway. It was [at the Pyramid Club] just one night, October of 1982, before the floodgates opened. 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. So I call LL up and I let her speak to him for a few minutes. Many of its bartenders have gone on to open their own places. One of his favorite pieces was the Alto Rhapsody of Brahms, sung by Dame Janet Baker. I got so tired of getting mugged on my way home. [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. The pictures on the wall were all from the Fifties, and a group of us girls would go and get our hair done in crazy bouffants. 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. One of many iconic Upper East Side eateries owned by the Santo Family Group . I had no reason to stay awake or to fall asleep. See more ideas about memories, restaurant, howard johnson's. Wed go to bed among the broken glass, booze and old cigarettes. He was very aware I was using a lot of paper that wasnt being accounted for, so we came to an agreement that I had to pay. I lived on the quiet end of Hollis, Queens. Then you would call at 10, or 10 after, to check in with your agent to see if there was anything going that day. The apartment, at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street, was like a fantasy apartment huge, with a view of the reservoir. And by 1991 a good dozen of the neighborhoods bars were offering similar ladies night deals. 68. Sometimes wed have lunch. LaTanya Richardson Jackson (far right) in Spell #7, 1979. 2. While her friend Sara explained, We dont even like this place. 1. We had a prom, a debutante ball, a ladies wrestling night. But those deals enticed 22-year-olds to get out of their apartments. 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. In those days, there wasnt any downtown, so life was much easier. You were constantly on the phone: Did you see this in the paper? I asked the kids to demonstrate what theyd been doing. Some of the best bars on the Upper East Side cultivate the feeling of "Old New York.". Sometimes that meant dispensing a free keg or two of Bud Light until it ran out during a traditional off-night, like Tuesday or Wednesday. By ajordahl123. In 80, I got a job at Todds Copy on Mott Street. Bar owners argued that they should be able to capitalize on the marketplace however they could and that only the State Liquor Authority could outlaw such ladies night deals. They had done mostly commercial work, and I had to explain to them that this is different than their commercial stuff to take a different kind of care. It was a small scene, people like writer Stephen Saban, Keith Haring, Jean-Michel [Basquiat] and Kenny Scharf. That was Sucker M.C.s., I was still living at home. We had great people like Billy Nunn [Radio Raheem in Spike Lees Do the Right Thing], Skeeter [Ellis Williams, who was in The Pirates of Penzance on Broadway]. Or I would throw a party. Ann Magnuson performing at Kenny Scharfs opening atop his Ultima Suprema Deluxa Cadillac on November 14, 1983. It was around the corner from another tiny spot called Chandalier. Did you come to see the show? He slowed and turned around: Yeah, you too.. 25 East 61st street is the rear extension of 673 Madison Avenue, an Italianate brownstone built in 1871 by architect John G. Prague as part of a project for the developer John McCool which included a row of 5 brownstones on Madison Avenue, and 17 houses on 61st street. We didnt pay rent, but it was meant to be $300 a month. 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. 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]. Like Clubhouse on York Avenue, which intentionally offered a frat house-like atmosphere. I was working at the Whitney and helping to open different museum branches, so I was shuttling between 42nd Street, Stamford, Conn., and the downtown branch, which was just a few blocks from where I lived, on Front Street in the South Street Seaport area. State records are incomplete. That was the best place to get fresh bread and rugelach and sweets. Wed been working on the film for a year in dribs and drabs. 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. The weekend that it happened, I got a call at 2 oclock in the morning from the owner of the theater. Growing up in the suburbs of Chicago, a boy like me didnt know there was a place for him in the world like that. 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. When AIDS hit, the lines were drawn: You were either straight or gay. And why I got out.. Now nothings open after 11. Carina Finn July 6, 2022. Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. 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. hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. Thats pretty good.. The bakery, located in the front and open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., is great for an excellent croissant and coffee break. And yet, plenty of ladies were also against them. The area was really no-mans land. 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. Then we packed up our stuff, went back to the coffee shop to have breakfast and headed home. It was almost a surreal experience, because I had the feeling that this person is only vaguely here. Theyd say, Yo, Dap, listen to that. All the hip-hop artists came [to the atelier]; there wasnt any other place that catered to rappers. Sometimes you would cry, but most of the time you were just stunned, like it wasnt real. I did not know what my passions or imagination would lead to. I had to be at the theater by 7 oclock so I could start my process and get ready before half-hour call. Elsewhere, so he was going back and forth between doing the TV show and the play. The apartment had this old refrigerator that didnt have room for much, so in the winter Id keep everything out on the fire escape. In the lot there are three vehicles. 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. Wendy Wild made magic mushroom punch. They were supposed to be 17 or 18. In retrospect, Bowie was ahead of the curve. We used to have a TV with a VCR on at all times, playing MTV and the guys coming up. 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. At the end of the night I would walk all the way home. 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. 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. The Penrose. (By the time we filmed Desperately Seeking Susan in 84, New York was already beginning to become more gentrified.) 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. He had intended whatever conversation we were having to go in another direction. They were all drunk and wasted and they were happy. But this was every week. It was the three of us. The all-you-can-drink deals just dont happen these days, because the rents are so high, says Block. People like Jean-Michel [Basquiat] would come in, who was somebody you knew from Tier 3 and the Mudd Club; someone your age. The original Murray Hill restaurant expanded to this location in 2011, and in 2017 added an upstairs cocktail bar to entice a younger crowd. 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. More likely than not, Id have to go downtown to the garment center to get some fabric or trimming. Id go for two, three, four hours and have a fairly good time. I knew people who were dying as early as 79, and three months later their partners were dead, so by 1981 I had a clear picture, even if it hadnt fully sunk in, and it was an incredible life changer. It was a total nexus. Every parent, every grown-up was your mother and father. In the '80s, 25 East 61st st. was home to B. Harris & Sons, jeweler to the stars! No ID check, nothing. Then we hit the clubs: Sound Factory, the Roxy, the Fun House. I would be coming back around 4, 4:30, 5 oclock sometimes 6. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. It was run by very old Jewish folks. Come be a part of it. The doors would open and things would get going by 10, and by midnight it would be raging. It was raw: It had been a paper storage facility. Richard Gere was a fixture, as well as Diana Ross and Princess Caroline. It all depended on who was playing. 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. Nobody was talking to him, probably because they didnt recognize him. Originally part of the Pillsbury Corp., the restaurant was founded in 1976. It was just shattering, but of course I had to pretend that this was the surprise that I had brought my board to see. I couldnt work in color because I couldnt afford to make color prints. I mean, thats when Brooklyn was Brooklyn, not some extension of the West Village or a place with good coffee. 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 . We also created a percussive orchestra that was all pots and pans and a lot of racket, and that was the debut of the band Pulsallama. I would get some bus money, some pizza money, some soda money and some money to be able to get into a jam. Then later, it became about getting a gig at Danceteria, Mudd Club they were all little milestone achievements. 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. 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. 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. Meanwhile, 25 new bars had opened between 76th and 96th Streets in the first years of the 1990s as well. Wheres Joe? Eventually youd realize that he died, and his family came and put his artwork in a dumpster. The artist David McDermott shot by his then-partner, the artist Peter McGough, East Village, 1983. I was living with my parents in the Alfred E. Smith projects on the Lower East Sides waterfront. You couldnt get people to go to a club before midnight. The old downtown art scene was floundering, while some people, like Robert Mapplethorpe, had risen. 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. Ski Bar would issue custom-made lift tickets good for eight drinks apiece. 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. Id dance until about two in the morning and then Id go back to work. Write a Review! There was likewise Brother Jimmys, a Southern BBQ joint that served overproof punch out of rubber garbage pails. It was before he was onstage and all that; he was just starting out. The conversation was very interesting. The original flier for Kellys show at the Pyramid Club in 1981. I met Kim [Gordon] through a mutual friend. And Silk Road. It was really like a combination of living theater and installation art, very communal. The manager, Dorian Mecir, had a heart of gold. I unlocked the door. Not all these bars were necessarily beloved. There were so many actors who lived with us because we had five floors. 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. I was just out of high school. They could be stimulated by the heterosexual pornography that was on the screen. I couldnt, but I did turn around and walk with him for some blocks to the restaurant. The painter David Salle in his Manhattan studio, 1983. Galleries and museums didnt exhibit their work at that time. He recognized me and stopped to congratulate me on the film. 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. It was pitch-dark. Im a child of the Midwestern upper-middle class. He goes, What the hell are you doing to my theater? 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.. He needed someone he trusted. And then we had Robert Rauschenberg, a rascal and a great man. 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. Best upper east side bars 80\\\'s in New York, NY. I loved things coming around and you had to grab them, like getting your luggage off a luggage rack. Here, women can drink all they want all night long for absolutely nothing, wrote The New York Times in covering the phenomenon in April of 1991. For a while I lived on the Upper West Side, on the parlor floor of a brownstone on 71st Street between Amsterdam and Columbus. At 11 to 12, Id had a nine-hour day. When I was working at Newsweek, I often got out of work at two or three in the morning, and I would walk home up Madison Avenue often in stilettos from 49th to 74th and Lex. Or worse. Id make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. But truthfully, I hated it. Her father said, Dap, my daughter, shes driving me crazy. The essence of Upper East Side gentility, Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle is also the last public space to display the mural work of Ludwig Bemelmans, creator of the iconic children's book character and prolific illustrator of the 1940s and '50s. Tuesday Trivia. 1983 The Food Marketing Institute reports that 2/3 of all fish consumed in the U.S. is eaten in restaurants. Many of these bars tried to offer a sort of bridge from cheap college boozing to costly, real-world imbibing. 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.