upper east side bars 1980s

Patsy Cline. 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. Someone broke the front glass and stole the poster. When our gallery, Gracie Mansion, started, both Gracie and I had other jobs, so we would switch off. I had no student loans and the housing was still affordable. After shows at La MaMa, we would go to the gay bar on East Fourth Street and Second Ave. Gay and straight people would party together. Fleming's was a fun Irish bar on the upper east side in the 1980s & 1990s, up until it closed in 1994. And the rest of us were kinda like, Oh man, what? She was the ultimate ballerina, and she became that on Fame. I was excited that I would be able to introduce this new band of gypsies to the Hollywood scene. Or I would throw a party. The all-you-can-drink deals just dont happen these days, because the rents are so high, says Block. I tried to write every single day, first thing in the morning, 10 a.m. Youd think he would have been the most outrageous-looking person there, but he looked like a businessman. It was a very different kind of neighborhood from the one I grew up in in Harlem just starting to be gentrified. So in April we held the Rites of Spring Fertility Bacchanal. Up the street from my apartment was 8 B.C., a club run by two friends of mine. Within 18 months, several more "singles bars" were opened on 1st Avenue. 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. 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. They were all drunk and wasted and they were happy. Thurston was a scholar. A crack den lined with books. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. One of many iconic Upper East Side eateries owned by the Santo Family Group . I was like, Oh cool, youre doing art too? Bands would put up fliers all over SoHo; there were wheat-paste fliers everywhere. I saw Jody Watley on television, and I was like, They dont steal silver, Im going to wear those!. By the end of the relationship, I was living there. . There would be 200 people in there. Rapping and fashion were being born at the same time. So wed be starving. But some places were so beloved theyre still talked about fondly today. A restaurant my wife and I definitely did not frequent was Elaines. And if I missed it, I felt really bad. Al Sharpton (right) backstage at Madison Square Garden on June 11, 1974. My first loss was my partner, around the time Grace Kelly died in 1982. I couldnt work in color because I couldnt afford to make color prints. I couldnt believe he knew the same stuff I listened to as a kid in Greenwich Village. It must have been late spring of 1981. Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. By 1968, there were a whopping 85 bars on the Upper East Side, most of them singles bars. I mean, thats when Brooklyn was Brooklyn, not some extension of the West Village or a place with good coffee. I had just moved the gallery to Franklin Street in TriBeCa from West 57th Street. Then I would go to Macys and go to the $10 rack. Mozart. And then off wed go! To me, the 1980s were incredibly liberating. 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. Veselka was the go-to place to eat and get cake the lemon bundt or the mohn. The infamous Upper East Side murder has yet to fade from public memory. Today hes in his mid-50s and out of the bar business entirely. In the mornings, usually around 11 a.m., Id go to one of the coffee shops around the corner on Avenue A. Odessa was one, and Leshkos was the other. She had made a video of herself dancing to LL Cool J. Come be a part of it. The doors would open and things would get going by 10, and by midnight it would be raging. To me it was all an art project. 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 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. Youd see people that you hadnt seen in months in the street with KS [Kaposis sarcoma] lesions; people would just disappear. 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. The whole thing finally fell into place in May of that year when I went on Tom Snyders show on NBC. I would walk around the neighborhood, go down to 42nd Street and do a lot of movie cruising. Together, this chorus of voices assembled, edited and condensed creates a compelling mosaic, revealing a city bustling with creativity but also slowly emerging from its recent near-bankruptcy, with upscale restaurants just blocks away from rubble-filled, graffiti-painted lots. Id been divorced and on my own since 1977 I had started the business with my husband a decade earlier and it felt like women were waking up. Peter was straight out of Damon Runyon and Weegee. Youd have Chinese opera and then some kind of Russian circus act and then a punk band and then a drag queen. Pizza with Duck Sausage wins quick stardom. Hes a Leo all the Leos I know love history. Gracie Terrace, New York, NY (212) 535-3140 (212) 535-3140. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. And shoulder pads. But this was every week. Wed go to bed among the broken glass, booze and old cigarettes. 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. My life was spiraling downward. Lines around the block. 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. 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. I existed like a soldier preparing for combat. Today the Upper West Side is considered one of the richest, cleanest, and most expensive places to live in New York City. Then it got to be a habit. He recognized me and stopped to congratulate me on the film. And I got in trouble because I didnt get home until like 1 or 2 in the morning. And when she gave me the phone back, she went into [hysterics]. I slept when I was exhausted and awoke when I was refreshed. The apartment, at 1060 Fifth Avenue, at 87th Street, was like a fantasy apartment huge, with a view of the reservoir. Block opened it with a partner, Adam Singer, when he was just 22; he had worked at nearby Brother Jimmys for just two weeks before getting fired and deciding he could run a better bar. Linda Goode Bryant, founder of Just Above Midtown Gallery. There were very few places to work out back then. I went over and started chatting with him, and we became completely engrossed in this conversation about jazz. 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. I dont even know if it was named AIDS at that point. 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. I never saw that before and hed never experienced that. Amura ($$) Japanese Menu Available. I met Kim [Gordon] through a mutual friend. One place I went to a lot was the St. Marks Baths. Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth performing at CBGB in 1983. Thats pretty good.. In 1980, I was working as a staff photographer for the New York Post. 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. Carnegie Deli Carnegie Deli. Open in Google Maps. I worked part-time for gallerist Annina Nosei. I met Peter Hujar through Susan Sontag. 1. The Mudd Club was right around the corner, going full throttle. The original flier for Kellys show at the Pyramid Club in 1981. It was the only Xerox machine below 14th Street, so every artist used it. I was straight-edge, so if I snuck out, I was all right, because I wasnt hungover the next day like the other kids. I would go there every day to write. Guerrilla art activities took place all over. On the east side of Lexington, between 78th and 79th, was the best fishmonger Ive ever known: Rosedale. 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. 1 place sorted by traveler favorites. Some of them were open 24 hours a day, or they were closed maybe four hours a day for cleaning. I had glasses, so I put these flip-up sunglass visors on them. Her upstairs neighbor was artist Dan Graham, who I knew through the artist-poet Vito Acconci. In retrospect, Bowie was ahead of the curve. The people who were chic, the downtowners, pretty much just wore black that could instantly give you a look. If I were going out that night, Id go see Garren to fix my hair. But truthfully, I hated it. Youd establish dialogue with great artists like Lawrence Weiner. I lived and still live in a large duplex at the corner of Park Avenue and 80th Street, in a 1907 building designed by Delano and Aldrich. The landlord turned off the plumbing, so wed defecate into garbage bags and throw them out the window. I would get back home [from school] at a decent hour, four in the afternoon. 2. Then you checked to see if there was anything in the theater papers for auditions. I started JAM in 1974 to show the work of African-American artists and other artists of color. We were very, very thin. Darryl McDaniels, musician and member of Run-DMC. My fantasy was to rent one of these theaters on 42nd Street and show my movie alongside Mad Monkey Kung Fu. In the 60s, it was only open to the high class and the rich, like authors up on the Upper East Side. In school, I never fit in at all. Many of its bartenders have gone on to open their own places. Back then no one came in and said, Let me see your bar menu, says Block. I was preparing that summer to start my first semester at St. Johns University. It didnt have a name. Book with OpenTable. Women would crowd around oil drums turned into tables and, while standing on sawdust floors, pound cheap beer and well liquor. But, most women slugging free beers at Brother Jimmys or complimentary Champagne at Jungle Jims or on-the-house Slalom Shots at Ski Bar arguably enjoyed these ladies night deals. I made a deal for him to do a cheapo job by trading a Brice Marden plus $10,000. When Canadian-born club impresario Peter Gatien came to New York City in the early '80s, after. I remember this night in particular because of another guest, Jack Henry Abbott, who was living in a halfway house a couple blocks away. But it did make me very, very moody there were a lot of underground clubs, and they wouldnt jump off till 1 a.m. 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.