I came to New York in 1978. Shot out of a cannon from Texas. If there is one thing I can be thankful for having lived in Dallas it’s that it made it very easy to want to leave. A mostly uninteresting city in a mostly uninteresting State. I’d also gotten a sweet taste of NYC.
Senior year Spring break at the University of Texas at Austin. I had a friend in New York so I decided to visit. As an art major, if one was serious you had your eye on Los Angeles, Chicago or New York City. And let’s be honest, nothing could touch NYC. Considering myself sufficiently serious I flew up for the week. My friend, Eva, was living in an illegal loft space at the top of what was then the Bowery Bank at the corner of Grand Street and Third Avenue. The Bowery. The loft itself housed an array of artists: painters, puppeteers, writers and musicians. Forget about reliable sleep. Seems some rogue band was always using the common living area at night for performance. At that time the city was a cesspool of trash strikes, crime and imminent bankruptcy.
Very cool.
Everything in New York is heightened. Everything. Walking. Eating. Playing. It all happens at an accelerated pace. For me that was the appeal. You could quietly sit on any corner and in short order half a dozen interesting things would happen to you without any effort. Inevitably the week was quite eventful. One evening, a few days in, as Eva and I were enjoying the night air up on the roof of the loft we heard a quick ‘bam, bam, bam, bam’. The slightly irregular cadence was fairly unmistakeable. Sounded like gunfire. The next day I heard the news. Former mafia lieutenant Salvatore “Sally Bugs” Briguglio was the victim of a hit outside Benito’s II just down the street. OK. New York City. Mob Hit
Very cool
Towards the end of my stay, Jeff, one of the loft mates, insisted on taking me to see a band performing at CBGB up the block. Poly Styrene and the X-Ray Spex. They had been playing a residency of a sort and this was one of the last nights they’d perform. Being a shitkicker from Texas I’d never heard of them. And being a shitkicker from Texas I had no idea what to expect from CBGB. Quite intimidating for a greenhorn like myself. Loud and raucous. Fun. At the end of the gig the ever fashionable Poly and her bowler hat brushed past us on the way out. At the time I had no real grasp of the iconic performance I’d just witnessed. CBGB
Very cool.