Hed come around maybe at 7 oclock. 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 loved to walk down Clinton to Delancey I called it Rue de Rves because it was filled with bridal shops with garishly colored dresses. Nobody was talking to him, probably because they didnt recognize him. 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. Not only did Mr. Brown come on with me, but Muhammad Ali did, too. I probably dont need to tell you that bar owners like Reynolds werent letting women (or ladies) drink for free out of the goodness of their hearts. Answer (1 of 6): While not classy in haute cuisine, these long-gone restaurants were very popular in the 70s and 80s too: * The Caramba! 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. It all depended on who was playing. If you wanted fancy, youd go to La Grenouille. Then it was getting a good time slot at CBGB, so you werent on last and werent on first. Spanning the late 1980s through the late 1990s, . This was every Friday. It was raw: It had been a paper storage facility. Cramped beer and shot joints with names like the Blue Moon, Czar Bar, and Richters were all vying for the attention of this influx of recently graduated young adults who wanted to go out, but had little money to do so. The silhouette I was doing broad shoulders and thin hip was my way of reinterpreting masculine power, but with humor. Learn more about historic floods. She and Larry Gagosian had this space, it was a condo loft in a building on West Broadway. On the east side of Lexington, between 78th and 79th, was the best fishmonger Ive ever known: Rosedale. And when my mother asked me where I was at, I just said, Oh, I was in the attic.. Money was secondary to being able to have this playground we could create. Back then no one came in and said, Let me see your bar menu, says Block. Everyone associates me with Jesse Jackson, but actually James Brown is the person I consider most like a mentor. The quiet and space afforded clarity. In the summer of 1992, New York Magazine published a photo of the Slalom Shots alongside a brief blurb and, according to Block, That more or less started the anarchy in the neighborhood.. I was part of the backpacker renaissance; you brought a backpack, so youd have a change of clothes. 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 artists Laurie Simmons and Carroll Dunham at their wedding, 1983. There were no movie theaters, bookstores, galleries or photocopy shops, so my entrepreneurial idea, which failed, was to open one, Chelsea Copy. Clear all filters. There were lines around the block the theater starting bumping it up to a second and third screening. Separated from the commotion of the day, I would stretch my own canvases and start to paint in the dormitorys common room. That was the best place to get fresh bread and rugelach and sweets. I was also a regular at this neighborhood salon presided over by a Mr. Steve, who wore big, Coke-bottle thick glasses and was practically blind. The Landmarks That Made New York a Cultural Capital, Uptown or Downtown? 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. His name opened every door for me. It needs to be said that, technically, ladies nights were illegal in New York and had been so for quite a time. Here, notable locals revisit their routes and routines, from lunch on the Upper East to nighttime sojourns to then-emerging neighborhoods like TriBeCa. Courtesy of John Kelly, photograph by John Dugdale, John Kelly, performance and visual artist. 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. This kind of activity is highly socially ordered: You dont barge in on other people, thats all part of it. Silently. It made the general public aware that people were dying in Brooklyn, in Harlem, in the Bronx. Youd press your lips to the bottom and Slalom Girls would pour a combo Jaeger/tequila shot that would shush down the slope and into your face. Galleries and museums didnt exhibit their work at that time. Points of interest include Central Park, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Guggenheim, The Whitney Museum, Hunter College, Gracie Mansion and Carl Schurz Park. It was the only Xerox machine below 14th Street, so every artist used it. Peter was straight out of Damon Runyon and Weegee. But were not going to complain.. He had intended whatever conversation we were having to go in another direction. There was . Theyre exploiting women by using them to attract men, claimed its spokeswoman, Daveda Copeland. Then, I didnt have the kind of formal board that one would today. Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. East 80s, NY Restaurant Guide. The Penrose. We could each get a full breakfast scrambled eggs, hash browns, whole wheat toast with an endless cup of coffee for $5 with tip. 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]. The people who were chic, the downtowners, pretty much just wore black that could instantly give you a look. Landis shot the models one afternoon on the Upper East Side. To me, the 1980s were incredibly liberating. He was the voice of every commercial on the radio or television at that time, and the richest among us. I started JAM in 1974 to show the work of African-American artists and other artists of color. I was breaking up with somebody a long, slow breakup. People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars. He goes, What the hell are you doing to my theater? It made me immobile. 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. Now let me write mine. In October of that year, when I was back in New York, the Carters visited the city and Nan invited them to dine with us at Elaines [restaurant]. 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. I never saw that before and hed never experienced that. 1442 1st Avenue, New York, NY . In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. LaTanya Richardson Jackson (far right) in Spell #7, 1979. But it had started with a simple idea: What if a bar just let women drink for free? Wed go to bed among the broken glass, booze and old cigarettes. 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. Melon I ate a lot of hamburgers there. The liquor laws werent as strict Ski Bar didnt have to have a kitchen nor serve any food and rent was cheap, both for bar space and the nearby apartments. In the early 80s, I had a great loft in the meatpacking district, which at that point was full of meat hanging on hooks and blood running in the streets. 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. How you doin this morning?, He was young, dressed in jeans, and clearly shocked. It was all very small town-y. That was Sucker M.C.s., I was still living at home. 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. I started spending a third of my time there. Of course, it wasnt just rising rents, Mayor Giuliani, and smart phones that would kill ladies night on the Upper East Side. I got my apartment through Stanley Strychacki, the founder of Club 57. I got so tired of getting mugged on my way home. As soon as he opened [his own place] I started working there, alongside Sara Driver [the filmmaker and partner of Jim Jarmusch]. In 1980, I was working as a staff photographer for the New York Post. Talk to the actors as they drifted in about your day, talk about whos auditioning for what. 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. I lived on the quiet end of Hollis, Queens. LL wasnt used to this kind of attention. I just left the house on a Sunday, went to make the record. 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 a very quiet audience. I was sneaking out. 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. 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. We would get on at the ramp at Chambers Street and ski up to Spring Street to the Ear Inn. Like Outback, an Australian-themed bar on 93rd and Third Avenue, which hosted Men Are Pigs nights three times a week. It was a total nexus. Patsy Cline. Id dance until about two in the morning and then Id go back to work. 68. Ski Bar turned into a Taco Bell and Block moved to Telluride, Colo., where he and Singer opened a similar bar, Poachers Pub. Taylor Mead had a running tab at multiple bars. It was nothing but rejection. It was before he was onstage and all that; he was just starting out. It was right next to the Chelsea Hotel, where I was living. Then we packed up our stuff, went back to the coffee shop to have breakfast and headed home. I made sure there was a hot tub in there. My dormitory was at the corner of East 14th Street and Union Square. 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. We had a bar and some makeshift situation where people would collect the door charge, $5 or $10 maybe. You werent afraid of getting it, you were wondering when are the symptoms going to show up. Steve Landiss photograph for fashion designer Norma Kamalis 1981 Sweats campaign. Not surprisingly, it worked. Bob introduced us, and Dustin congratulated me on the film and told me my acting was naturalistic. It dawned on me that there are so many different styles of acting and you dont have to adhere to just one. Somebody might have called during the night to say they might have job opportunities, so you always checked your machine. It was chaired by Brendan Gill, a great theater critic and architecture writer. . Like the Womens Christian Temperance Union. He would maybe drink half a glass of wine. The straight clubs became very, very straight. I was finishing my dissertation and working as the porn critic for the New York Native, so Id go up to the Adonis at 51st and Eighth and different theaters in Times Square. I had no student loans and the housing was still affordable. Many of these bars tried to offer a sort of bridge from cheap college boozing to costly, real-world imbibing. Having had an alcoholic mother, he did not like being around people who drank much. When we went out it was to perform. 1. Hip-hop artist Prince Whipper Whip of the hip-hop group Grand Wizard Theodore & the Fantastic Five at the Sparkle in the Bronx. I was 19. Like Geronimos Bamba Bay Cafe (a.k.a. I invited him to dinner. In the summer of 1981 I was living with Gary Fisketjon, my best friend from college and my future editor at Random House. 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. 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. Even though every single record Id put out up until then was gold, platinum or multiple platinum, Diana was the first time Id ever worked with a big star. Sometimes you would cry, but most of the time you were just stunned, like it wasnt real. The artist David McDermott shot by his then-partner, the artist Peter McGough, East Village, 1983. May 6, 2009. It's just happening. But I did it anyway. He was in his preppy stage in those days, wearing button-downs, which really is hard to imagine now. 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). I was living with my parents in the Alfred E. Smith projects on the Lower East Sides waterfront. But this was every week. Then you would call at 10, or 10 after, to check in with your agent to see if there was anything going that day. It was a kind of a monks cell. He was with his editor Erroll McDonald, a good friend of ours, but he refused to come into the room, remaining near the door with his back against the wall. The painter David Salle in his Manhattan studio, 1983. 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. It cut down a great number of the people who were out there doing it, but at the same time, the ones who were left were much more intense about it. A restaurant my wife and I definitely did not frequent was Elaines. I chose a very mournful, elegiac, orchestral piece of music, and I created a gray-scale portrait of three heads: Bills head in the middle, and my two profile heads coming out of either side of his. The landlord turned off the plumbing, so wed defecate into garbage bags and throw them out the window. Its until you pass out.. Brandy's Piano Bar 68 Bars & Clubs Gay Bars Upper East Side Open now Thats what I did. 1. 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. At Elaines, for instance, you would find people Elaine was floating. David McDermott and Peter McGough, artists. In a letter about her trip, she wrote, When pages needed to be retyped, Jimmy did the retyping. Guthrie Inn on the other hand perfectly captures how living on the Upper East Side feels in reality; a bit isolated and quiet at times, a haven from downtown at other times, comfortable yet on the rise, and full of an interesting cast of characters. This was a moment in Manhattan history that had never really been seen before and hasnt been seen since. It was at Avenue A and St. Marks Place, but the windows looked out on an air shaft, not the park. Plodding. 1982 Having introduced nouvelle cuisine at Ma Maison in Los Angeles, Chef Wolfgang Puck presents "California cuisine" to patrons of his new chic-casual Sunset Strip restaurant, Spago. I realized I had to leave. So I flipped on the light and said, Good Morning! And the hair. I remember the smell of the theaters so well popcorn and weed. 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 bakery, located in the front and open 8 a.m. to 9 p.m., is great for an excellent croissant and coffee break. The writer Gay Taleses social calendar for October 1983. Everyone was very excited. Peter was so self-possessed and dignified, I never, ever thought of him as poor, even though he had no money. 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. There was a great camaraderie. But I didnt feel super cool or anything. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. 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. The venues didn't matter to me. They were spinning on their heads, the cops said. It felt like there was all this dangerous energy. 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.. But at midnight, yes, I was often out. 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. And then off wed go! We were both rather exotic in each others eyes. 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 found them very original, underivative of the 60s or 70s they had a cleanness and a strength to them. Indeed, many of his customers would come from Normandie Court a block away. When I first moved to the city, there was a garbage strike. Did you come to see the show? In 1981, I suggested a bacchanal a night of pagan merriment as spring was coming. Thankfully, most seemed to only be of the public urination and inconsiderate noise variety, angering wealthy locals. There were so many actors who lived with us because we had five floors. The Upper East Side of New York City is a Manhattan neighborhood that lies between Central Park and the East River and goes from E. 59th St. to E. 96th St. 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. It was like a village, yknow? The silence, as they say, was deafening. Wednesdays and Thursdays were Ultimate Ladies Night with free Margaritas all evening, not to mention a gratis taco bar during happy hour. I knew so many people in Harlem, I kept a second apartment in the Bronx, where I tried to be unseen. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. 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. All of the cabbies would line up there to get eggs and bacon late at night. We made an altar to a llama, and everyone dressed in kind of Greco-Roman outfits I wore a toga with sequins. At night, if you headed south through long dark blocks to the meatpacking district, there were clubs and leather bars. Afternoon workouts. 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. All the music [in the atelier on 125th Street] came from the VCR. I would often wake up in the middle of the night as the city slept. Darryl McDaniels, musician and member of Run-DMC. We called the area TriBeCa, but we laughed about it the same way we laughed at DUMBO. I had no reason to stay awake or to fall asleep. I got up at anywhere from 3 to 5 in the morning and worked as long as I could. Friday's location on the Upper East Side. I think that free drinks for women is discriminatory and a bad idea, wrote Cynthia Heimel, a feminist columnist, in the November 1991 issue of Playboy. I was living with my aunt and one of my cousins in a shotgun apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Sometimes wed have lunch. Wheres Joe? Eventually youd realize that he died, and his family came and put his artwork in a dumpster. One day, I was walking uptown to an appointment just before noon, and coming toward me was Robert Duvall. Anyone can read what you share. It was sort of 11 to 7. 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. It was really like a combination of living theater and installation art, very communal. I came here from Europe at age 22 in the 1960s already married and went to Park Avenue.) I drove up in my Maserati Bora at around 5 oclock in the morning and walked in with Billy Idol, who was a buddy of mine. Ann Magnuson performing at Kenny Scharfs opening atop his Ultima Suprema Deluxa Cadillac on November 14, 1983. Every night was a huge passeggiata with people perusing the blankets. Thats why I started wearing silver hoop earrings. I existed like a soldier preparing for combat. Four days a week, I was studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute down on 15th Street. And why I got out.. I had half of the third floor, which was sort of the high-ceilinged fancy room, though it had long, long since stopped being fancy. Other times, it literally meant all-you-could-drink, whatever you wanted to drink, on every single night of the week. go perform deliverables cognizant,