A little while back, EV Grieve and I got in a little bout of seeing who could post more album covers and/or music videos featuring depictions of New York City, the more esoteric the better. In the end, both of us wound up putting up some pretty obscure shit. In any case, there was one video I always wanted to put up, but I couldn't for the life of me remember the song title or the artist in question, only that it was by some New Jack Swing cat (i.e. not my usual fare). My searches came up empty, and eventually I gave up. The reason I wanted to post it was because it featured the dude & his posse of high-steppers singing and dancing right at the crossing divide where Bleecker Street, Lafayette Street and Mulberry Street all intersect. It's one of my favorite little strips of Manhattan, actually.
Today, meanwhile, a colleague of mine felt inclined to celebrate the arrival of Friday by posting a suitably celebratory clip from 1988 called "Just Got Paid" by a dude named Johnny Kemp on Facebook, and lo and behold – that was the clip! To watch the video in question, you'd never know it was the same plot of real estate. The photo at the top of this post (taken by one Jeremy Meyers) gives a bit of a clue as to what that area looked like in the late 80s and into the early 90s (before they covered the original mural with billboards). Click here to see what it looked like in 1979. Today, meanwhile, it's been built out and covered with scaffolding (here's what it looked like earlier this year). It's a busy little intersection.
In any case, thanks to Tahirih, here's a rather idealized glimpse of what it looked like circa 1988 (although I certainly don't remember this neighborhood being quite so festive). Fetch thyself thy dancing pants and hit play.
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