There is no limit to it. It was the three of us. I had glasses, so I put these flip-up sunglass visors on them. Not only did Mr. Brown come on with me, but Muhammad Ali did, too. There are a lot of places to eat eggs and pancakes in the middle of the day on the Upper East Side. People used to say, The East Village will be gone when theres a Gap, and then, in the late 80s, one opened on the corner of St. Marks and Second Avenue. I was living uptown really the classic uptown, which, because I was young, seemed a little wild to some people with my kids and my mother (also, at that time I was in love with a Brazilian man Id met in Bali). I never saw that before and hed never experienced that. State records are incomplete. My fantasy was to rent one of these theaters on 42nd Street and show my movie alongside Mad Monkey Kung Fu. I said, Im very happy for you, youre selling a lot of tickets. There was likewise Brother Jimmys, a Southern BBQ joint that served overproof punch out of rubber garbage pails. The rental apartment upstairs from my mother, with the same layout was recently listed for $9900.00 a month. The infamous Upper East Side murder has yet to fade from public memory. I doubt if many artists experienced it that way. On July 11, the guests included novelists Harold Brodkey, Mona Simpson, Richard Price and Scott Sommer (who might be better known if he hadnt died at 42). Bars & Clubs Gay Bars. We didnt pay rent, but it was meant to be $300 a month. Meanwhile, 25 new bars had opened between 76th and 96th Streets in the first years of the 1990s as well. He had intended whatever conversation we were having to go in another direction. But, most women slugging free beers at Brother Jimmys or complimentary Champagne at Jungle Jims or on-the-house Slalom Shots at Ski Bar arguably enjoyed these ladies night deals. I was sneaking out. And then there were athletes and New York characters a bunch of people who I didnt know what they did, I just knew I saw them all the time. Next door to my apartment on East Eighth and Avenue C was the Green Oasis Community Garden, and I got involved with that. See more ideas about memories, restaurant, howard johnson's. There were problems, of course; you serve young men and women as much alcohol as they can humanly consume and theres bound to be. This bar, deep inside the St. Regis on Fifth Avenue, is one of the few New York hotel bars whose . Spanning the late 1980s through the late 1990s, . The deal with him was he never had to come and he never had to give any money, but he would give his name and a recommendation. 1 place sorted by traveler favorites. There was an interest beyond becoming ladies who lunch. Everyone talks about the 1970s as being the birth of feminism, but for me, the 80s were really about feminism in practical use. The city was different then. Silently. Two editors at Simon & Schuster thought it was terrific, but they said, You have to produce this yourself, and we can possibly get you a distribution deal. Coming from China, I was eager to be accepted in this new environment, which felt like a monstrous machine indifferent, its frenetic energy fueled by ambition. Sam was doing Ragtime, and then he did A Soldiers Play on Broadway. High-end lounges and clubs were beginning to pop up downtown, especially around the flourishing Meatpacking District, and if plenty of ladies would continue to drink for free at places like Lot 61, Moomba, Spy Bar, and Marquee, it was the male customers who were usually paying for the overpriced bottles of Grey Goose and Patrn. Cramped beer and shot joints with names like the Blue Moon, Czar Bar, and Richters were all vying for the attention of this influx of recently graduated young adults who wanted to go out, but had little money to do so. A lot of the alternative spaces Franklin Furnace, A-Space had music, too. At one end of my block was J.G. The point of ladies night is to get women into bars and get them drunk so that men can score.. Within a few days, he came to my apartment, which is how I wound up doing the arrangements for Lets Dance.. She was the ultimate ballerina, and she became that on Fame. I was excited that I would be able to introduce this new band of gypsies to the Hollywood scene. One is the van that were filming in thats our set but also a place to stay warm in between shots one is a car for running errands and then theres a truck, guarded by two Doberman pinschers, with all of our lighting and camera equipment. Or wed go around to try to get breakfast from our friends, ringing doorbells to see who was up. But it did make me very, very moody there were a lot of underground clubs, and they wouldnt jump off till 1 a.m. Broadway 96 [Club Broadway] was more geared to black and Latino youth and that was definitely a wilder place. Everybody was happy for him and saying, O.K., its possible, were in the right place, were doing the right thing., I remember the first time we went in and read A Soldiers Play out loud, we were all just staring at each other going, Oh my god, this is amazing. Two days later, Adolph came in, threw his script down, and said, Im ready! And we all looked at him like, Okay, fine! So we all threw our scripts down, too, because everybody had learned the play in like two days. I would write longhand, sit down at the typewriter and type what I had, take those pages across the room to a different chair, sit down and work between the double spaces, do another draft. One place I went to a lot was the St. Marks Baths. Sometimes wed have lunch. We decided to live together at her place, 84 Eldridge Street. As told to Caroline Bankoff,Heather Corcoran,Nancy Hass and M.H. There were very few places to work out back then. Peter cant keep going that way, not in the city that its becoming now. It was all exposed wood and brick, and it had a tiny fireplace, a futon, my books, a sink and a stove. I was 16 when we started going to the Roxy, and my guest list was 100 people, and we were kind of like the ornaments on the tree. His shoulders dropped and he said, Yeah. We looked at each other again when I opened the door for him; we were each wondering what had just happened. Hearing hip-hop on the street, minimalist new music, free jazz it all added to this fabric that was a landscape. And yet, over the years, bars continued to try to offer ladies night deals (whether discounted or completely free drinks) and various factions had tried to stop them. When the sun came up, we would get bagels or pretzels and get back on the train. I would often wake up in the middle of the night as the city slept. My primary motive back then was to put on a show, and anything that slowed me down from that had to be curtailed. I was in my early 30s, and I had Tatiana and Alex, my children, so I didnt stay out until dawn like I had in the 1970s. [Kim] would work one day, and Id work the next. In the Early 80s, It Made All the Difference, Oral History: Remembering New Yorks Fiorucci Store, New Yorkers and Their 80s Routines Block by Block, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/17/t-magazine/80s-nyc-map.html, Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. It was all very small town-y. Thats what I did. Everything had my initials on it, or the name of somebody else on it; it was really crazy. We had a bar and some makeshift situation where people would collect the door charge, $5 or $10 maybe. I dont even know if it was named AIDS at that point. Despite the lack of a cabaret license, DJ Mike would spin soon-to-be-classics of the moment like Salt-N-Pepas Lets Talk About Sex and Color Me Badds I Wanna Sex You Up, while everyone danced. I loved things coming around and you had to grab them, like getting your luggage off a luggage rack. Peter was straight out of Damon Runyon and Weegee. I would just sit there. There were so many actors who lived with us because we had five floors. On NYCs Upper East Side, Ladies Night Ruled the 90s Until It Didnt | VinePair, https://vinepair.com/articles/ladies-night-wars-nyc/, wbs_cat Spirit, ladies\' night, laws, manhattan, women, Domaine Champalou Vouvray 2019, Loire Valley, France | VinePair, https://vinepair.com/good-wine-reviews/domaine-champalou-vouvray-2019-loire-valley-france/, wbs_cat Wine, wbs_type Vouvray, wbs_brand Domaine Champalou, chenin blanc, good wine, Vouvray. Being at the Carlyle was amazing, but I was still an undergrad at Yale at the time, and the whole thing felt unreal, as though I was living two lives. I had reached 30 and was having to face how hard it was going to be. I existed like a soldier preparing for combat. Someone broke the front glass and stole the poster. We liked to get there early, which the club promoters loved because wed get the party started. It was social, the Upper East Side ladies. NR is a cocktail bar on the Upper East Side that serves inventive drinks and solid ramen. It needs to be said that, technically, ladies nights were illegal in New York and had been so for quite a time. Youd have Chinese opera and then some kind of Russian circus act and then a punk band and then a drag queen. The manager, Dorian Mecir, had a heart of gold. I would take my work from that lab it was already mounted with dimensions like 48 by 72 inches, 40 by 60 inches carry it to the E train, down the stairs, then get off at Canal and carry it down to Leonard and up my four flights of stairs. Thats pretty good.. In the 1980s, the restaurant began to decline, as it switched up menu items in favor of more chicken and fish. Wed say, Theyre not up in the morning, so dont go to them or They have kids, so maybe theyre up because the kids wake up. Wed visit people in the morning, early. Its until you pass out.. I tried to focus on my art. Then our leading lady, Susan Berman, broke her leg, and we had to wait for her to get out of the cast. We were very, very thin. I felt like I was having the best entertainment of my life, because people were going up and down the aisle, going, Loose joints People were talking throughout the whole movie going, Yo, shut up! It was just like the kung fu movies they were the same audience. The Penrose. You did a lot of the auditions immediately. Howard was Lili LaLeen, a German film actress in a vintage Mary McFadden. And then eventually some surface decoration with tucks and treatment Id take the fabric and just sew in any direction. The crass reason, of course, is because since the beginning of time, straight men have wanted to be drinking in the same place women are drinking because, yes, men are pigs. The artist David McDermott shot by his then-partner, the artist Peter McGough, East Village, 1983. He recognized me and stopped to congratulate me on the film. Then it got to be a habit. I would walk around the neighborhood, go down to 42nd Street and do a lot of movie cruising. Dinner on the Upper East Side with a former president of the United States. I lived at the Olympic Tower, and Halston was downstairs.. We had a prom, a debutante ball, a ladies wrestling night. There was a theater called the Capri that I went to a lot. See menus, reviews, ratings and delivery info for the best dining and most popular restaurants in East 80s. Together, this chorus of voices assembled, edited and condensed creates a compelling mosaic, revealing a city bustling with creativity but also slowly emerging from its recent near-bankruptcy, with upscale restaurants just blocks away from rubble-filled, graffiti-painted lots. Nine oclock was the earliest you could go. Are you going to this? It was make coffee, check in and then get busy stripping wood. Ann Magnuson, actress and performance artist. This morning was no different than any other. CBGB was just up the street, and I performed there with my band or as a solo poet many times. Le Relais, on Madison and 63rd, was more everyone my age and everyone from Europe. I was living at almost the exact point where the Village meets the East Village, in the Colonnade Row building, right across the street from the Public Theater. Its basically the most conscious, relatable record. I was at the same place I am now, 222 Bowery. Arent the both of us up early, I said. The 1980s era of Wall Street expense accounts had evaporated as young professionals, for the first time in a while, actually had to pay for their own drinks. It was nothing but rejection. Id make sure everything was in place and see what the new orders were. He has one book but he doesnt have the next two. Our club-hop starts with the titular Limelight, Gatien's firstand still favoriteNew York club. They were on 51st or 52nd between Fifth and Madison. Ski Bar turned into a Taco Bell and Block moved to Telluride, Colo., where he and Singer opened a similar bar, Poachers Pub. You could order a pizza anytime. (Never let on to a dog youre afraid of him, my Uncle Charlie would say.) He said, Dap, whats she doing? I said, Shes gasping for air now! And I go attend to her. These parties inevitably blur together in my mind, but I remember that night because a week later, Abbott stabbed and killed a waiter at the Binibon cafe, a few doors down the block. When Canadian-born club impresario Peter Gatien came to New York City in the early '80s, after. The Ladies Auxiliary of the Lower East Side sort of a punk rock version of my mothers Junior League group, which I started with some other girls from the East Village hosted several events at the club. East 80s, NY Restaurant Guide. I made a deal for him to do a cheapo job by trading a Brice Marden plus $10,000. By the time midnight came around and I knew my parents were sleeping, I would sneak out the window down onto the porch. The whole thing finally fell into place in May of that year when I went on Tom Snyders show on NBC. And I just loved that experience. I would then either go to work or go to an opening because Macys closed at 8:45 or something, so you had to move on. Her upstairs neighbor was artist Dan Graham, who I knew through the artist-poet Vito Acconci. That is, until 2008 when Bennigan's went bankrupt. By my late teens, people used to tell me, You and you sister, its like its your job to go clubbing. Maybe five nights a week Id leave Brooklyn around 8:30 or 9 oclock. My parents were heroin addicts, beatniks. Upper East Side. So when they talked to me about playing the character Lydia Grant, the dance teacher, I said, Yes, I would be so interested if I could also be responsible for the choreography. Because by this time, I had been developing as a choreographer, working with the Henry Street Playhouse and the New York Shakespeare Festival, and I really loved doing it. I tried never to leave my ZIP code. Everyone was very excited. And they said, Yeah, you can have that they werent even thinking about it. James Brown and Ali because of them, I basically became a made guy. An important place to have breakfast was Buffas, on the corner of Lafayette and Prince youd see Jim Jarmusch and Jonathan Demme in the booths there. Not only did we dress in wigs and dresses from 14th Street, but we took on personas to match. We could each get a full breakfast scrambled eggs, hash browns, whole wheat toast with an endless cup of coffee for $5 with tip. So I call LL up and I let her speak to him for a few minutes. Maybe he could do your book under that contract. So I went to the Factory and stood at a tall table with Andy and Bob, and Andy went through the dummy. Michael Gira, the frontman of the band Swans, was on the [first] cover. You would go up to the club and then you would look for a friend, like, Wheres so-and-so? Oh, he got the thing; he got the sickness. It would just ruin your night. It was all happening at the same time; there was a lot of yin and yang. I slept when I was exhausted and awoke when I was refreshed. I lived at the Olympic Tower, and Halston was downstairs. My days changed depending on what show I was putting on, what sort of rehearsal schedule I had and how late Id been up the night before, though I had a rule for myself: Always be back before sunrise. I had been starring on Broadway in West Side Story, and I had done the movie Ragtime, which was also coming out, but dance has always been my heartbeat. Of course, it wasnt just rising rents, Mayor Giuliani, and smart phones that would kill ladies night on the Upper East Side. One time a girl a teenager, maybe 15, 16 came in with her dad. He was in his preppy stage in those days, wearing button-downs, which really is hard to imagine now. It had a tub in the kitchen, a tiny little toilet bowl in a closet of a room, one narrow hallway room and a slightly bigger front room maybe $210. The first single we ever made [was in 1983]: Sucker M.C.s was the B-side of Its Like That. Its Like That was a record that was talking about all of the things that was going on in communities, society and also the world. And the director, Charles Fuller, was like, No, youre not really ready you just think you are! Everybody was anxious to do it for an audience, so by the time we opened, it was amazing. 2. People would drop change in your hands, turn their heads when you tried to kiss them. Guerrilla art activities took place all over. On the other end of the spectrum, a growing mens rights movement would continue to try and put the kibosh on ladies night deals throughout Manhattan and the suburbs, even if their arguments werent necessarily made in good faith. And I got in trouble because I didnt get home until like 1 or 2 in the morning. Shan among its residents. Open in Google Maps. Honestly, my mind was empty, but I wanted to be consumed by that emptiness. And then we had Robert Rauschenberg, a rascal and a great man. But I didnt feel super cool or anything. It was packed every night; it won the Pulitzer Prize that year. A guy in a black cocktail dress teetering precariously on the sill of an open window in a rear apartment (Room 410) of the Chelsea Hotel, screaming into the night.