NYC: 1992

It still doesn't seem that long ago to me, but I suppose it should. Children born during the summer of that year are now freshmen in college. We've had three presidents since then, and two of'em were two-termers. There have been wars, fads, trends, scandals, huge cultural moments, natural disasters and history-altering events all since then, but 1992 still seems strangely contemporary to me. I've grown used to frequently mentioning how I still have t-shirts and mixtapes from that year, but if truth be told, I don't have anything to play the cassettes on anymore and the t-shirts are now all a bit form-fitting, so to speak. That's what eighteen years will do to ya.

18 years ago, I was twenty-five years old. I was working at LIFE Magazine and living in Yorkville on the Upper East Side. By day, I was an editorial assistant to the news editor, assigning stories and chasing down reporting from stringers. On the side, I wrote in a freelance capacity for a freebie newspaper called New York Perspectives (gone), a tiny independent music `zine called The New York Review of Records (long gone) and a short-lived, glossy version of Creem Magazine (gone). I was busy, active and saving money by living at home (an arrangement that would only last so long). While I probably grumbled about it at the time, life did not suck.

While I worked by day, by night the city was my playground. Uptown, I was often found hanging out at either Ryan's Daughter or The Gaf (both on East 85th Street), while my downtown base of operations was a tiny apartment on Irving Place that was being rented out by my friend Rob. The building was purportedly the residence of Washington Irving at one point, and Rob rented the garden-level floor from the brother of Wallace Shawn (as such, we'd routinely answer the phone with an emphatic "Inconthievable!") From this space, we ran roughshod over the lower Manhattan.

That summer was a busy one. Work-wise, I was tapped to orchestrate credential logistics for LIFE correspondents and reporters at the Democratic Convention at Madison Square Garden. As a perk, I got to use them myself and check out some of the proceedings first hand. That was pretty exciting, coupled with the fact that I'd just started dating a girl from the office. Weekend days were spent in the verdant, idyllic sprawl of Central Park. Weekend nights were spent downtown, usually seeing live music.

My favorite bands at the time (Killing Joke, Cop Shoot Cop, the Stranglers, etc.) remain my favorite bands today, but while other folks were paying entirely too much attention to Nirvana and Snoop Doggy Dogg (sure, both had their moments, but I was sick to death of both of them at the time), I was digging a whole bunch of different and -- in some fleeting cases -- dubious stuff. Probably the biggest albums of that summer for me were Check Your Head by the Beastie Boys. How The Gods Kill by Danzig and Psalm 69 by Ministry. I was also grooving to stuff by Spiritualized, Curve, Blur, Kingmaker, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Shakespeare's Sister and …. er… Arrested Development. I saw Metallica co-headline Giants Stadium with Guns N' Roses (the former rocked, the latter spent too much time changing costumes), U2 at Yankee Stadium a couple of times on their bloated-but-entertaining Zoo TV tour and the second incarnation of Lollapalooza (the one with Lush, Pearl Jam, the Jesus & Mary Chain, Ice Cube and the Red Hot Chili Peppers). Otherwise, I spent way too much time in now-vanished live music clubs like the New Ritz, Wetlands Preserve, The Pyramid, Tramps and The Marquee and too much money in since-shuttered downtown watering holes like Downtown Beirut, Alcatraz and The Cedar Tavern.

It would all change, of course. I broke up messily with that woman from my office (that weepy saga can be read here) and everyone was laid off from LIFE Magazine in relatively short order. All three of the periodicals I was freelancing for folded, forcing me to find other outlets. My personal circumstances would continue to change. Most of those rock clubs and bars mentioned above closed, and the city itself seemed to transform.

So, why am I blathering on about the summer of 1992 when both my current situation and the city I live in are radically different from their incarnations of that time period? Well, I happened upon the video below on YouTube, and it touched it all off. Ignore the cheezy soundtrack and drink in the sights on NYC in the balmy, carefree days of the summer of 1992.

Comments

[NYCDreamin]

Awesome story Alex...thanks!

[James Taylor (no, not that one)]

I took a photo of that National Debt clock on Sixth Avenue the first time I visited the city in 1999. I don't think it's there anymore. I wonder what happened to it...

Looks like the producers of "The Sopranos" saw this video too (3:31-3:53)...

[Alex in NYC]

The National Debt clock is now around the corner -- hidden away on 43rd street between 6th Avenue & Times Square

[Muhranda]

Awesome.. I was 19 in 1992 and I really connect with your posts from then... in '91-92 I was at SUNY Purchase ... it was so alternative .. alternative went mainstream then ...How about Ministry at the Paramount Theatre @ MSG? Weird. hmmm 1991, I was listening to WDRE radio but also Killing Joke, trying to ignore Pearl Jam and grunge, hoping it would go away... a punk in the time of grunge ... so it's great to read your posts and be right there, at the same shows, almost passing you by on the sidewalk on 7th Ave somewhere in time, it all brings me back, maybe it was in seedy Times Square when we went there to get fake ids.. the kind that say "I am a student at" and the Indian guy would type in your name, fake DOB and take your pic, laminate and voila! Instantly 21. Now there's an Olive Garden there. sad.
I think I found Flaming Pablum when I googled "I am the Best Artist" from the 80's SoHo artist Rene and linked to your Vanishing album...I love it. When my uncle got married in '87, his reception party was at Rene's studio/loft in SoHo- I was 13 - and it was amazing to me because I had always seen the I am the best artist all over and then to actually be in his loft, see his crazy art and meet him made quite an impression on me. So, thanks Alex for doing what you do. making connections. Keep it up.

[Janna Rosenkranz]

Wow, that bring back memories. I'm two years older than you and wow, thanks