249 Eldridge Street #14

249 Eldridge Street: Where I lived with Jack Rabid from 1984-1986. I moved in a week out of high school. My parents were afraid for me. I think my dad came up the day I moved in & that may have been the only time one of them ever came in. There were dozens of cockroaches, and the place was far from the renovated state most apartments in New York are in these days. I haven't seen so many cockroaches in the years since either. There were prostitutes on Houston Street, and drugs were easily obtainable. Across Houston Street, where Second Avenue ends, was sort of an open area where, in the colder weather, homeless guys constantly had a fire going in a big old oil can.

As the sign outside the Village Voice offices says, "Where have all the junkies gone?" I often wonder about them...along with the cockroaches, prostitutes & homeless people. Those were the days.