Back In The Day...

A Boy and His Dog  (aka- Stan & Bob);  Photo: © S. Banos

One often looks back on one's youth through a nostalgic haze that conveniently filters out the negative- until you cut through the haze and start remembering in earnest. Moving into NYC (even from its outer boroughs) would mark a definitive milestone in anyone's life, it most definitely did in mine. It was 1980, the height of the Punk/New Wave scene, and New York still had a coupla remaining years before being meteorically launched into warp speed gentrification. 

The New Year's Eve photo that will never be surpassed, Studio 54- Photo: © Tod Papageorge

Thirteen in '69, I desperately craved to participate in my own version of The Sixties (which really started in '63 and ended in '72), but had well given up as the mid seventies devolved into a "modern" version of the '50s- the advent of disco pretty much signalling the final death knell. And then, a funny thing happened at the end of the decade, this thing called... Punk. And all of a sudden there was this crazy energy out on the streets again. No, it wasn't the unavoidable, universal sea change of the sixties; it was on a much smaller scale, but there nonetheless, if you chose to acknowledge it- in all its pre-digital, unconnected wonder!

New York was still in its post Gerald Ford, Drop Dead doldrums- ads in the Village Voice still advertised 3rm apts in Alphabet City/Loisaida renting for $650 (with the understood agreement that anything you were foolish enough to move in would be automatically removed free of charge), a heroin renaissance was still to occur, and crack had yet to be invented. Williamsburg was still Hasidic and/or Puerto Rican and nowhere near hipsterdom- in fact, anyone from the outlying boroughs was condescendingly referred to as "Bridge and Tunnel." This was also the time when you could walk out unto any East Village street on any given day and see the likes of Quentin Crisp, Afrika Bambaataa, The Beastie Boys or any of thousands of indie rock celebrities and wannabes. Robert Frank drunkenly burned original prints from The Americans in his loft on the Bowery, Alex Harsley held shop at The 4th St. Photo Gallery, and Hip Hop was about to spill from the Bronx and invade the the rest of NYC, the nation and the world.

Photo: © Ken Schles- who & where to go for more of a sense of the period...

Of course, this last ditch reverberation of The Sixties could not possibly endure unabated; it too would implode, and  by 1985- the tsunami called gentrification, fueled by unbridled greed, crack and mass Madonna commercialization inevitably dawned and triumphed. And just as jellyfish are now consuming the earth's vast oceans filling the void once occupied by fish- bodegas and local, centuries old Lower East Side storefronts were replaced, seemingly overnight, by a plague like torrent of small art galleries whose owners saw and promoted not art, but their own dreams of $$$ and art world stardom. Within a year, most would not even linger long enough to become memories, replaced by... upscale boutiques- it would never be quite like Paris.

The look Madonna popularized the world over... several years before she appropriated it; London,  Photo: © S. Banos

Youth would expend its final, semi-glorious gasp, my dog would soon depart- and New York, of course, has always had a way of cashing in on one's dreams, sweat and determination... and crushing them all the same. The photo biz (like everything else both seen and/or imagined in this town) was incredibly cut throat and competitive even then, I wanted no part of that hustle and would soon embark on a Special Ed career that would well occupy my time for years to come in Harlem and Oakland, CA when I made the move to the Left Coast. Marriage, a blog, pet cemeteries and the dawdling years of middle age awaited...