upper east side bars 1980s

They paid me like a tenth of what they paid me to do the acting, and it became my whole life. Hed come around maybe at 7 oclock. Peter cant keep going that way, not in the city that its becoming now. Caribbean Restaurants Restaurants. But, pre-AIDS anyway, it was also more diverse. Photograph courtesy of Charlie Ahearn, whose groundbreaking hip-hop feature film Wild Style (1983) featured Grandmaster Flash, Lee Quiones and Fab 5 Freddy, among others. The election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 is sometimes used as a marker of the beginning of the end of the art world as it was then known, as if the two were somehow related, as if an election ushered in some new aesthetic permission, a new vulgarity, which is really a kind of negative magical thinking. We went from our home in the East 60s, with Jimmy Carter and me in one car (driven by a member of the Secret Service) and Nan and Rosalynn in another. Some of the best bars on the Upper East Side cultivate the feeling of "Old New York.". It was nothing but rejection. The conversation was very interesting. People thought I was a little crazy. It wasnt a rich peoples restaurant; it was a restaurant for people Elaine happened to like. We said we were artists, and artists make art. Their approach was direct and curt, no frills not self-consciously art-directed no frills, but Old Country, 19th-century no frills. When Canadian-born club impresario Peter Gatien came to New York City in the early '80s, after. It was really like a combination of living theater and installation art, very communal. 16 Best Upper East Side Restaurants - Eater NY Best Upper East Side bars in NYC. The Mudd Club was one of my favorite spots to go out thats where I was introduced to James Chance and the Contortions and Talking Heads. Could you just call LL so she could just say hi? Everybody knew I knew all the rappers and everything. Other times, it literally meant all-you-could-drink, whatever you wanted to drink, on every single night of the week. 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. Dont come ringing my doorbell! I remember we would go from person to person. I was living with my parents in the Alfred E. Smith projects on the Lower East Sides waterfront. Being at the Carlyle was amazing, but I was still an undergrad at Yale at the time, and the whole thing felt unreal, as though I was living two lives. The restaurants where mobsters gathered, ate and got murdered Studio 54 was over after the owners, Steve [Rubell] and Ian [Schrager], got arrested in 1980, so we all migrated to the Mudd Club, on White Street. I tended to feel particularly safe in the theaters. 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. So when they talked to me about playing the character Lydia Grant, the dance teacher, I said, Yes, I would be so interested if I could also be responsible for the choreography. Because by this time, I had been developing as a choreographer, working with the Henry Street Playhouse and the New York Shakespeare Festival, and I really loved doing it. I got my apartment through Stanley Strychacki, the founder of Club 57. Did you come to see the show? $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. She rehabilitated a homeless man who panhandled outside the shop, and he became a model salesman. 40 Iconic Restaurants That Are No Longer Around - Delish Williamsburg is like New York in the 70s. Todd didnt like the idea that I was doing a fanzine. Many of the bars of this era were, in fact, themed, and sometimes cheesily so. A group of artists, friends and a few colleagues, including Marcia Tucker, the founder of the New Museum, demolished what remained of a former meatpacking company and converted it into JAMs new space. [Kim] would work one day, and Id work the next. Thats where youd run into people, share breakfast. Then you would call at 10, or 10 after, to check in with your agent to see if there was anything going that day. This was a luxury ski town, not the Upper East Side, and he had to ultimately tone things down. Still, he found ladies night ultimately quite profitable. There was a lot of crossover, because ours would go to 6 or 7 in the morning some god-awful time. That is, until 2008 when Bennigan's went bankrupt. It was run by very old Jewish folks. In a letter about her trip, she wrote, When pages needed to be retyped, Jimmy did the retyping. Spankys, a sports bar on 75th Street, attracted the young Republican crowd that had begun to invade the area. 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. I was living with my aunt and one of my cousins in a shotgun apartment in Bushwick, Brooklyn. Once I saw someone selling a broken light bulb. I would walk around the neighborhood, go down to 42nd Street and do a lot of movie cruising. CBs wasnt the best sound; it was such a long and narrow space that if it was crowded you couldnt really see anything, unless you were standing on the side of the stage, and then you just heard the stage sound. Next door to my apartment on East Eighth and Avenue C was the Green Oasis Community Garden, and I got involved with that. 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. Elaine's was a bar and restaurant in New York City that existed from 1963 to 2011. I lived on the quiet end of Hollis, Queens. I lived above a topless club at White and Church. Id walk to Cooper Union, where I was teaching. 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. 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. (212) 861-2290. He was in his preppy stage in those days, wearing button-downs, which really is hard to imagine now. LL wasnt used to this kind of attention. It was very close to the Forward Building, which housed the important Yiddish newspaper. We didnt bother to get any filming permits; the city was just coming out of its bankruptcy crisis, and I dont even know if the mayors film office was up and running. His name opened every door for me. Learn more about historic floods. The whole thing finally fell into place in May of that year when I went on Tom Snyders show on NBC. Two weeks later we were begging to let people come watch us rehearse. I had a horrible graveyard shift at a coffee shop, one of the only places to eat in Chelsea, open 24 hours super crickets, deserted. What New York Was Like in the Early '80s Hour by Hour I mean, thats when Brooklyn was Brooklyn, not some extension of the West Village or a place with good coffee. Many of its bartenders have gone on to open their own places. When youre at a memorial mourning the passing of a friend or a lover and theyre really young, where do you put that stuff? Gracie Terrace, New York, NY (212) 535-3140 (212) 535-3140. He needed someone he trusted. Youd get into costume, put makeup on, make sure your props were in the right place, talk to the stage manager. Bronwyn Thomas, she was like happy feet on her toes. Then there were the rumors that they were going to make a movie of the play, and naturally we all thought, Oh my god, were gonna be in a movie! But when the time came to make that movie, they only took Denzel, Larry, and Adolph. Thats what happened at Club 57 a lot: We told people, This is the theme. What are some legendary restaurants in New York City in the 70s - Quora And Silk Road. One of many iconic Upper East Side eateries owned by the Santo Family Group . 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. Arent the both of us up early, I said. We cant put the money out for something this queer. Then [writer and editor] Bob Colacello saw the project and said, Andy Warhol has a three-book deal with Houghton Mifflin. I asked the kids to demonstrate what theyd been doing. Somebody might have called during the night to say they might have job opportunities, so you always checked your machine. During the day, Id get my paints at Canal Hardware or Pearl Paint. I slept when I was exhausted and awoke when I was refreshed. It was raw: It had been a paper storage facility. Load more. People like Jean-Michel [Basquiat] would come in, who was somebody you knew from Tier 3 and the Mudd Club; someone your age. Thurston Moore would take me to see hardcore groups like Black Flag. So I call LL up and I let her speak to him for a few minutes. 15 of the Best Upper East Side Bars to Visit Now - Time Out New York We were shooting the pilot, and I was trying to find the best dancers I could. And when she gave me the phone back, she went into [hysterics]. 1. And I just loved that experience. 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. 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. Despite the lack of a cabaret license, DJ Mike would spin soon-to-be-classics of the moment like Salt-N-Pepas Lets Talk About Sex and Color Me Badds I Wanna Sex You Up, while everyone danced. Now nothings open after 11. Separated from the commotion of the day, I would stretch my own canvases and start to paint in the dormitorys common room. Or worse. I was like, Oh cool, youre doing art too? Bands would put up fliers all over SoHo; there were wheat-paste fliers everywhere. Then it got to be a habit. 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. Bodega 88 Night Clubs Bars Brew Pubs (19) 8.6 Website (212) 799-1602 573 Columbus Ave New York, NY 10024 CLOSED NOW 2. New York City's Most Classic Restaurants - Town & Country East 80s, NY Restaurant Guide. Wendy Wild made magic mushroom punch. 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. Mom says that your apartment looks like a crack den, my daughter told me once. 77 Restaurant memories 1970-90 ideas - Pinterest The silence, as they say, was deafening. Jane Fonda had recently released her workout tapes, and it was the first opportunity a lot of women had to exercise. It all depended on who was playing. CBGB was just up the street, and I performed there with my band or as a solo poet many times. 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. But as soon as we walked in, nearly everyone stood and applauded. I remember the smell of the theaters so well popcorn and weed. In the 1980s, the restaurant began to decline, as it switched up menu items in favor of more chicken and fish. We made an altar to a llama, and everyone dressed in kind of Greco-Roman outfits I wore a toga with sequins. Theyre exploiting women by using them to attract men, claimed its spokeswoman, Daveda Copeland. Then later, it became about getting a gig at Danceteria, Mudd Club they were all little milestone achievements. 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. It was just shattering, but of course I had to pretend that this was the surprise that I had brought my board to see. Meanwhile, 25 new bars had opened between 76th and 96th Streets in the first years of the 1990s as well. This was every Friday. My apartment was four stories up, and I got a place on the floor below for Kim Gordon. . I dont even know if it was named AIDS at that point. 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. I remember this night in particular because of another guest, Jack Henry Abbott, who was living in a halfway house a couple blocks away. 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. 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. 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. 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. Kamalis clothes cleverly combined athletic wear and fabric with high-fashion cuts and silhouettes, perfectly embodying the era. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. What if they just let all women drink for free? In 1981, I suggested a bacchanal a night of pagan merriment as spring was coming. You can walk down the. You werent afraid of getting it, you were wondering when are the symptoms going to show up. Friday's location on the Upper East Side. My first photo lab was called Hy Photo. 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. A WRITER SHARES 1980'S UWS MEMORIES, AND ASKS FOR YOURS - West Side Rag Mornings spent alone, writing in a studio in the West Village. Things were 50 times as bad in Brooklyn as they were in Manhattan. The people who were chic, the downtowners, pretty much just wore black that could instantly give you a look. The all-you-can-drink deals just dont happen these days, because the rents are so high, says Block. See menus, reviews, ratings and delivery info for the best dining and most popular restaurants in East 80s. A cracked bathroom mirror reflecting a sink full of discarded puffs, eyeliner brushes and trays of blush. A lot of very creative, brilliant people were living in rough places downtown, which was dangerous but cheap, but I never did. 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 had a loft downtown on Walker Street, one of the first buildings that went on loft strike. Afterward, wed go to a club. We recorded at a studio called Greene Street Recording Studio on Greene Street between Houston and Prince. An important place to have breakfast was Buffas, on the corner of Lafayette and Prince youd see Jim Jarmusch and Jonathan Demme in the booths there. It's just happening. I would then either go to work or go to an opening because Macys closed at 8:45 or something, so you had to move on. 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. For a while I lived on the Upper West Side, on the parlor floor of a brownstone on 71st Street between Amsterdam and Columbus. 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). 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. It had the best hamburgers and gin martinis. The infamous Upper East Side murder has yet to fade from public memory. Taylor Mead had a running tab at multiple bars. Sometimes it could just be too blasting. The whole neighborhood was a lower-middle class suburban area. You did a lot of the auditions immediately. And I got in trouble because I didnt get home until like 1 or 2 in the morning. Harrys Hula Hut had bamboo walls, palm trees, and Nerf basketball available, plus all-you-can-drink beer. Silently. It made me immobile. Sep 13, 2019 - Restaurants that I ate at as a child..most no longer exist. AIDS was a very strange situation; starting in 82 you knew very little about it, and then a few years later you suddenly realized it was the largest killer among your personal friends. If I threw a party, by midnight there was probably an especially good mix of people there. Since no ones making them, they dont.. When AIDS hit, the lines were drawn: You were either straight or gay. And the city wasnt so much about money. Team Infatuation August 19, 2022. I would be coming back around 4, 4:30, 5 oclock sometimes 6. Nobody was talking to him, probably because they didnt recognize him. But were not going to complain.. The title was an intentional lure the work wasnt about Grace Kelly, but the painter William Schwedler. For one assignment, the paper sent me to Washington Heights to photograph what it said was a riot. 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. Her father said, Dap, my daughter, shes driving me crazy. I got so tired of getting mugged on my way home. 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. How the Original TGI Fridays Helped Create the Singles Bar - InsideHook Owner Sean Fleming's band was among the many popular bands that would perform there. But at midnight, yes, I was often out. I loved things coming around and you had to grab them, like getting your luggage off a luggage rack. I made sure there was a hot tub in there. He and I had dinner every night, and a stream of our friends, including Keith Haring and Debbie Harry, would join. It was on 35th and Fifth, and it was a place where the sushi came around on a conveyor belt. The early 80s were sort of the beginning of serious gentrification. Its until you pass out.. Back then no one came in and said, Let me see your bar menu, says Block. Courtesy of John Kelly, photograph by John Dugdale, John Kelly, performance and visual artist. No ID check, nothing. 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. It was pitch-dark. 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. Everyone writes that I was his tour manager, but thats not what it was. And Bowie had no idea that was my background. But I didnt feel super cool or anything. The Mudd Club was right around the corner, going full throttle. (By the time we filmed Desperately Seeking Susan in 84, New York was already beginning to become more gentrified.) Indeed, many of his customers would come from Normandie Court a block away. 380 Lafayette St, New York . Sometimes I would read him the weeks work. 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. It was almost a surreal experience, because I had the feeling that this person is only vaguely here. 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. You wanted to be there when it was happening, and then youd migrate at around 2:30 to an after-hours club.