Over the last couple of days, two articles of note have come to my attention regarding "the old days" here in NYC. They may be of interest to some of you, and will do nicely as we await the follow up to Love Saves The Day, by Tim Lawrence, which will cover the NYC club scene in the 80's.
The guys over at the always interesting DJ History just posted a story that's as much a tribute to the late, great Mark Kamins as much as it is about Danceteria.
"In New York in the eighties, more was more. The city was crawling out from its burnt-out seventies bankruptcy and wanted to pile on as much colour and life and asymmetric haircuts as it could cram into a strobe-lit graffiti-strewn cellar. Rents were still dirt cheap in many parts, especially the areas below 14th Street, so if you had the driving ambition to open a gallery or a nightclub, or a boutique, or a performance space, it wasn’t hard to find a basement or a derelict storefront and get on with it." Continued here.
And, originally posted in 2009, Steve Lewis writes a brief history of after hours clubs in New York during the 80's for Black Book magazine. Robots images courtesy of Save The Robots' Facebook group.
"In the 1980s, the illegality, desperation and danger of the after-hours scene were drugs in themselves. I ran a joint called The World for some guys who were so unsavory that their lawyer partner seemed honest by comparison. After the filler patrons had all gone to bed, the owners would open the door for special friends and celebrities, who partied until dawn and beyond. In one of the boldest outlaw moves ever, a sledgehammer opened up a common wall to the burnt-out tenement next door. Squatters were rousted, and the space became the new It Club. Five-gallon jugs of vodka were hidden in the ceiling and connected to pipes and faucets, and the brew was served to Madonna, Carolina Herrera and Joan Rivers -- to Prince as well as paupers." Continued here.
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