🌈Once Upon a Time in New York City - Part 2
Continue with our life in the 70s New York City - 18 E. 17th St. Loft
Continuation of Once Upon a Time in New York City, Part 1
We moved into another apartment on 15th street, where we were burgled then bought a loft on 18 East 17th Street right off Union Square, which was another junkie haven, but the loft was amazing.
It was 1500 square feet with an apartment in the front with a custom Italian tile shower created by an Italian craftsman, a screening room (which I turned in to a 50 seat theater) a projection booth and photo dark room. I produced and directed a few productions there while I worked at ABC-TV as a video engineer. I called it Studio 17.
The tenants of 18 E. 17th were a motley, interesting crew of characters.
👍 On the first floor was a wholesale jewelers
✔On the second floor was Dave Spindel, a high end photographer who did mostly Madison Avenue work.
😍 We were on the third floor with our theater and photo studio
✔ On the fourth was another photographer Darnel Something-or-other,(don’t remember his last name). He did a lot of catalogue work for Penny’s, Sears et. al.
😎 On the fifth floor my friend and porno director, Abel Ferrara, who turned into a Hollywood director down the road working with top shelf actors.
💋 On the sixth were a bisexual couple Ray and Greta who owned a beauty salon. They later moved to San Francisco.
The elevator opened directly into the loft floors. One day a friend and I accidentally stopped on the 6th floor and Greta and a girlfriend were making out just as the doors opened. They didn’t bother to stop. They knew we were watching and got a big kick out of our open mouths. Howard Stern would have loved that floor. Lesbians making out wasn’t that common in those days. Times change.
I’m sure I could fill a book writing about that building, the characters and the times. Maybe I will.
The current New York City is cleaned up and a version of Disneyland (of course with all the new illegal immigrants it’s going to crap). It was a totally unique and now non-existent NYC of a bygone era.
We got to be in the middle of:
✔ President Ford to NYC, “Drop Dead” New York Post headline. The city was broke.
✔ The Son of Sam Serial Murders: Everybody was paranoid
✔ 25 Hour Blackout July 13, 1977 led to riots on a steaming ummer night
✔ The John Gotti Trials: Teflon Don avoided another guilty verdict
✔ 1977 Garbage Strike piled 6 feet high stunk up the entire city
✔ Punk Rock at CBGB’s (stayed away from it) Total skeeve joint, but missed seeing Debbie Harry and the Ramones.
✔ Plato’s Swinger Retreat—We never went, walked by it though. Not a place to bring the wife.
✔ 42nd Street Porno: Porn and pickpockets, and live sex shows. Tough place to sightsee.
I wasn’t an historical figure, but they were historical times, and I got to witness them first-hand. Thanks for taking the time to share these memories with me.
Feel free to share this an also comments are appreciated.
Lou Mascolo