Here's a very long shot.
You may remember a post from about a month back wherein I weepily wondered if there were any photographs out there on the `Net of a variety of since-vanished Manhattan spots like the original Forbidden Planet and a few other locales. I wasn't exactly inundated with replies, but I fielded some like-minded responses from similarly-inclined individuals. In any case, I've recently remembered another thing from the past that I wonder if anyone even remembers -- let alone ever captured on film. Suffice to say, it's pretty unlikely, but here goes.
I'd have to say that it could not possibly have been any later than 1983. I don't recall the specifics of the excursion, but I was on my way back from a high school trip in the rear of a big yellow school bus driving south down Park Avenue. This was way above 96th Street, though, which – at the time – acted as a veritable Checkpoint Charlie between the posh Upper East Side to the south and Spanish Harlem to the north. For the non-New Yorkers out there, the expansive byway of Park Avenue is split at 96th street by a Metro North tunnel that feeds into Grand Central Station fifty-four blocks to the south. The two sides of the avenue then splay like long, thin cables on either side of the train tracks and run deep into Spanish Harlem and beyond. So, I was on that school bus heading south on the western side of that divide.
I was looking out the window, watching the passing sights of a neighborhood that I was, shall we say, rather less inclined to explore at the time. In the early-to-mid 80s, it must be remembered, the environs north of 96th weren't exactly the most welcoming (or at least not east of Madison Avenue). In any case -- then as now -- my imagination was fired by graffiti and street art, and there was a lot more of it to be wowed by at the time. This was arguably the golden age of the medium. Anyway, I was staring out at the window when suddenly we pulled up next to a garishly painted wall that immediately struck a familiar chord with me. Depicted on the wall was a caricature of Wendy O. Williams in front of a towering replication of the Plasmatics logo (the slashed font used on the sleeves of New Hope for the Wretched, Beyond the Valley of 1984 and Metal Priestess). Resplendent in black leather and requisite mohawk and brandishing her signature chainsaw, this cartoony image of the then-infamous "shock rock" hellcat seared itself into my brain. I couldn't believe I was seeing a garish street mural of one of my favorite bands sprayed on a wall in Spanish Harlem. It didn't make any sense. Was it a joke? Was it a promotional thing? I pressed my face against the glass to study it, but before I knew it, the light had changed and our bus continued on back down the avenue. I tried to make a mental note of the location so I could come back and maybe capture it on film.
The following weekend, I remember hopping on my bike and sheepishly pedaling across the border of 96th to try to re-locate the Plasmatics wall, but to no avail. Whether because I was too worried about being mugged or hassled or I was simply disoriented, I never did manage to find the mural in question. I biked back home despondently, but I never forgot about it.
Decades later, I see collections of vintage NYC graffiti pictures all over Flickr all the time, but I've yet to find any documentation of that mural of Wendy O. Williams, and I absolutely swear I didn't imagine it. As I said at the top of this post, this is a total long shot, but does this anecdote ring any bells with anyone out there? Does anyone else remember a huge Wendy O. Williams mural somewhere in the upper 90's or 100's on Park Avenue back in the 1980s? Anyone? Anyone?
Please let me know if so. Here's a bit of vintage Plasmatics video to jog your memory. Incidentally, by no means am I asserting that the band in question made timeless, important music (as is amply demonstrated in the very silly clip below), but they played a role in my distant youth, and I'm curious to see if anyone can exhume this bit of incredibly arcane minutia. Humor me.
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