1980s DOWNTOWN NYC
In the early 1980s I attended a punk performance at CBGB’s, a gritty music venue that was located on the Bowery in NYC. The band, the audience, the sense of danger and rebellion that permeated the club was electrifying. I was captivated by its ethos of abandon, chaos and became driven by the overpowering urge to document its magnetism. I purchased a camera, a Nikon FM; the first step inside a photographic journey that launched my lifetime career.
I started photographing the music scene at small clubs throughout the East Village & the Lower East Side… bands, backstage, art events, local stories, receptions, portraits and the dizzying night life. I became a regular contributor and intermittent photo editor for the East Village Eye, a tabloid-sized independent publication launched by Leonard Abrams and sustained for 9 years by the creative moxie of a motley crew of writers, photographers and artists.
Fast forward through decades of editorial, corporate and fine-art work, it was thirty years before I re-explored the large archive of those serendipitous images. They reveal a raucous, culturally explosive, unique period in the arts, music and fashion worlds of downtown NYC. It existed barely a decade. Real estate speculation, gentrification, AIDS-related deaths and a confluence of other factors tore apart the edgy amalgam of downtown culture until most vestiges of what had fueled the artistic zeitgeist disintegrated.
Many of these images have never been published or seen by the public. My desire now is to open a window into some of New York City’s downtown history and light-hearted shenanigans; to pay homage to the personalities (and places) that floundered or flourished during that time; and to give voice to their legacy, so their rich contributions to an exciting NYC renaissance will never be forgotten.