I made a deal for him to do a cheapo job by trading a Brice Marden plus $10,000. Hed come around maybe at 7 oclock. These are the moments, large and small, recounted by 36 writers, artists, fashion designers, musicians and more who lived in New York City in the early 80s. Chloe 81 Night Clubs Dance Clubs Bars 6.7 Website Amenities: (212) 677-0067 You simply traveled to where things were happening. You could order a pizza anytime. I would drink quite a lot of wine. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. 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. The infamous Upper East Side murder has yet to fade from public memory. I was living on Eldridge Street between Hester and Grand. East Village 1980s | Ephemeral New York I was breaking up with somebody a long, slow breakup. 1 place sorted by traveler favorites. Those were developers terms. Ave., NYC It must have been late spring of 1981. People have bidding wars over apartments that cost millions of dollars. Those were days when we ate meat just blissfully. 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. Maxi Cohen, Area, 1985, Ladies Rooms Around The World, Courtesy of Ai Weiwei Studio and Chambers Fine Art. So I flipped on the light and said, Good Morning! The artist David McDermott shot by his then-partner, the artist Peter McGough, East Village, 1983. Next door to my apartment on East Eighth and Avenue C was the Green Oasis Community Garden, and I got involved with that. But I had no idea what I was photographing. Many of the bars of this era were, in fact, themed, and sometimes cheesily so. 1. In 1981, I lived on 79th and West End; it was tiny but very comfortable. (How many spinal taps can you give to someone under a refrigeration blanket whose fever wouldnt break?) Fleming's was a fun Irish bar on the upper east side in the 1980s & 1990s, up until it closed in 1994. There are a lot of places to eat eggs and pancakes in the middle of the day on the Upper East Side. It's now a Samsung store. And Bowie had no idea that was my background. When Canadian-born club impresario Peter Gatien came to New York City in the early '80s, after. I met Peter Hujar through Susan Sontag. Flemings Reunion Party - MurphGuide: NYC Bar Guide But where was the battlefield? (What a loft was, I wasnt entirely sure.) As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. I lived on the quiet end of Hollis, Queens. One place I went to a lot was the St. Marks Baths. I suppose I should have loved New York; things were very good for me. And they said, Yeah, you can have that they werent even thinking about it. Thats why I started wearing silver hoop earrings. Having had an alcoholic mother, he did not like being around people who drank much. Drunk patrons would dance on the bar top, well before Coyote Ugly, which would open in January of 1993, had popularized such shenanigans. Mornings spent alone, writing in a studio in the West Village. Then we hit the clubs: Sound Factory, the Roxy, the Fun House. Best 30 80s Night Clubs in New York City, NY with Reviews - Yellow Pages [Kim] would work one day, and Id work the next. I really loved those people the heroism of their everyday lives was palpable, and that was woven into the tapestry of the East Village. 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 . It made the general public aware that people were dying in Brooklyn, in Harlem, in the Bronx. Before that it had been pot. After shows at La MaMa, we would go to the gay bar on East Fourth Street and Second Ave. It was hard. 26 places sorted by traveler favorites Clear all filters 1. Some of the best bars on the Upper East Side cultivate the feeling of "Old New York.". You could say I was not a considerate neighbor. Todd Jorgensen ran the Xerox machine in Jamie Canvas, the art supply store in SoHo everybody went to. We would go till 4 a.m. Hell, we would go past 4 a.m. The people who were chic, the downtowners, pretty much just wore black that could instantly give you a look. Stunning Photos From 1990s Favorite NYC Nightclub - Patch Landis shot the models one afternoon on the Upper East Side. There was a place called Columbus, on Columbus Avenue and 69th Street. Sometimes wed have lunch. My habit must have appeared bizarre to my peers. I went from area to area of the performance space, onstage and offstage. The front window was a queer Mount Rushmore, with the heavyweights looking out onto the street: Rene Ricard, Bill Rice, Peter Hujar, Paul Thek. It changed everything. My apartment was four stories up, and I got a place on the floor below for Kim Gordon. 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. Thelonious Monk or Nina Simone or Gloria Lynne would stop by to visit them, so I grew up around these real bebop superstars. We didnt pay rent, but it was meant to be $300 a month. Delmonico's, 21-23 William Street (1831-1923, intermittently thereafter) In 1831 Swiss brothers John and Peter Delmonico founded the city's first . This kind of activity is highly socially ordered: You dont barge in on other people, thats all part of it. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. I did shows in there at night, including the first solo show David Salle ever had. hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. 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. Others would drop by out of curiosity and wonder what was on my mind. $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. We never served any food, but we always had a couple cases of beer and a basic bar. Jean-Michel Basquiat wandered in at some point a neighbor with whom we had a nodding acquaintance. There were very few places to work out back then. Mozart. I couldnt work in color because I couldnt afford to make color prints. How the Original TGI Fridays Helped Create the Singles Bar - InsideHook And Im not a corporate client, so please give me a break. The title was an intentional lure the work wasnt about Grace Kelly, but the painter William Schwedler. I unlocked the door. Afternoon workouts. 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. My contemporary, the writer Ed [Edmund] White, had the apartment next door. The early 80s were sort of the beginning of serious gentrification. I was living with my parents in the Alfred E. Smith projects on the Lower East Sides waterfront. 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. Within 18 months, several more "singles bars" were opened on 1st Avenue. The Mudd Club was right around the corner, going full throttle. She rehabilitated a homeless man who panhandled outside the shop, and he became a model salesman. Here are our favorites. But it did make me very, very moody there were a lot of underground clubs, and they wouldnt jump off till 1 a.m. Mom says that your apartment looks like a crack den, my daughter told me once. 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. The Penrose. 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. I would walk around the neighborhood, go down to 42nd Street and do a lot of movie cruising. Everybody was happy for him and saying, O.K., its possible, were in the right place, were doing the right thing., I remember the first time we went in and read A Soldiers Play out loud, we were all just staring at each other going, Oh my god, this is amazing. Two days later, Adolph came in, threw his script down, and said, Im ready! And we all looked at him like, Okay, fine! So we all threw our scripts down, too, because everybody had learned the play in like two days. . I remember thinking, How long can this go on? My days changed depending on what show I was putting on, what sort of rehearsal schedule I had and how late Id been up the night before, though I had a rule for myself: Always be back before sunrise. 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. Thankfully, most seemed to only be of the public urination and inconsiderate noise variety, angering wealthy locals. 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. Galleries and museums didnt exhibit their work at that time. When I crossed the bridge, I had my Saturday Night Fever moment the city was for the taking. 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 got so tired of getting mugged on my way home. 15 of the Best Upper East Side Bars to Visit Now - Time Out New York She was very busy editing books of her own, among them Jane Fondas Workout Book, Thomas Keneallys Schindlers List, Margaret Atwoods Bluebeards Egg and Rosalynn Carters memoir First Lady From Plains. At one point Nan traveled to the Carters home in Plains, Georgia, an ordinary split-level with an imperial iron fence that had been Richard Nixons from Key Biscayne (the Carters didnt believe in waste). We would sit at this coffee table and listen to records for an hour. And when my mother asked me where I was at, I just said, Oh, I was in the attic.. There was a theater called the Capri that I went to a lot. Then it was getting a good time slot at CBGB, so you werent on last and werent on first. I did not know what my passions or imagination would lead to. I was doing commercials and Ntozake Shanges For Colored Girls [For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf] I went on tour with that show, as part of the first national company. There would be all of the amazing designer clothes that nobody wanted, that were too weird. The only place that designated who you were was the Upper East Side. May 6, 2009. There were problems, of course; you serve young men and women as much alcohol as they can humanly consume and theres bound to be. And then off wed go! When he got sick, we were in a downward spiral for a year and a half. Hear Eric Goode remember when he found out about AIDS: I enrolled at the Parsons School of Design in 1982. Youd think he would have been the most outrageous-looking person there, but he looked like a businessman. 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. 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. Elaine's - Wikipedia (I might be the only person who never lived in a scary New York apartment. Other times, it literally meant all-you-could-drink, whatever you wanted to drink, on every single night of the week. 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. Id make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. But were not going to complain.. The demographics of the tony Upper East Side were likewise going through some radical changes post-1987s Black Monday market crash. (Never let on to a dog youre afraid of him, my Uncle Charlie would say.) They paid me like a tenth of what they paid me to do the acting, and it became my whole life. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. I liked to work out in the late afternoon, because in the morning I wanted to save every iota of energy for my work and the store. It was the tale of two cities back then, and I was in my late 20s, trying to get the message out, running the National Youth Movement out of an office in St. Marys Hospital in Bed-Stuy. I would go to this rotary sushi place called Genroku. Then later, it became about getting a gig at Danceteria, Mudd Club they were all little milestone achievements. Richard Gere was a fixture, as well as Diana Ross and Princess Caroline. I tended to feel particularly safe in the theaters. The Oldest Bars on the Upper East Side - East 86th St Association I didnt smoke or drink, and when you dont do those things, you need an outlet. Bodega 88 Night Clubs Bars Brew Pubs (19) 8.6 Website (212) 799-1602 573 Columbus Ave New York, NY 10024 CLOSED NOW 2. Not only did we dress in wigs and dresses from 14th Street, but we took on personas to match. Remembering the Lost Gay Bars of NYC - PAPER Upper East Side Bars - Directory of the Best Bars on the UES Or worse. I was still riding a little bit high off of the Diana Ross album Diana, which had come out in 1980. Theyre exploiting women by using them to attract men, claimed its spokeswoman, Daveda Copeland. It was almost a surreal experience, because I had the feeling that this person is only vaguely here. Or I would throw a party. These 1980s Restaurants Didn't Stand the Test of Time - Eat This Not That 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. 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. He had two responses: Pretty good, was high, high praise. We were shooting the pilot, and I was trying to find the best dancers I could. No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 1988 to 1999 - Medium The venues didn't matter to me. There were others: the Venus, and down in the 14th Street area, the Variety Photoplays, a Spanish one called The Jefferson, The Metropol [Metropolitan]. One (Instagram) showing somebody stumbling out of your bar and youre out of business, he believes. 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. Its until you pass out.. That was the start of the end of this era, says Block. Women would crowd around oil drums turned into tables and, while standing on sawdust floors, pound cheap beer and well liquor. The idea of hip-hop hadnt really gelled. In the Early 80s, It Made All the Difference, Oral History: Remembering New Yorks Fiorucci Store, New Yorkers and Their 80s Routines Block by Block, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/t-magazine/80s-nyc-map.html, Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist.