Alright, it was a great amount of time in coming, but here –- at long last –- is the denouement (I think) of the great Lunachicks search. But first, a quick recap for those who might have understandably skipped a few chapters….
The hunt started off pretty innocuously. Prompted by a fleeting mention in an earlier post about White Zombie playing at a short-lived club on Bond Street called Downtown, I did a quick image search and stumbled upon a fun shot of the lovely ladies in the Lunachicks circa their first LP in 1990, Babysitters on Acid, posing irreverently on a particularly weathered slab of Manhattan concrete. I’d found the photo on a random fan site without any sourcing, credit or information of any discernible kind. Moreover, it seemed to exist only on that site. TinEye and a reversed Google Image Search came up with nothing to illuminate its origin. The intrigue started to build for me.
At first glance, I assumed the photograph was taken on Bleecker Street between Bowery and Lafayette, but that turned out not to be the case. There were elements in the photograph that indicated more gated lots, recessed areas and driveways than are on that particular strip. Moreover, the brickface behind the girls didn’t match up with anything on that block.
But under even closer inspection, I managed to convince myself that I’d walked past the very spot upon which they are pictured in the photo –- and recently! I KNEW I recognized the location, based on some entirely flimsy criteria like the texture of the wall behind them and the minute architectural flourishes featured around them. Given the amount of time I’d recently spent walking the streets of downtown Manhattan (having been out of work for most of 2015), I was positive I’d strolled past this tiny point on the map within the last several months.
But there was still something indefinable about it. The image was filled with light and space, leading me to assume it must have been taken along a wide avenue or multi-laned byway. As such, I criss-crossed likely strips like 14th Street, Houston, Delancey, Chrystie, Allen and Forsyth Streets and Avenues A through C, looking for a match. But a match never came.
I then became convinced that it had to be somewhere in NoLita. As such, I hit that neighborhood like a hammer, regularly circumnavigating, backtracking and slithering through, across and around it on my walks home from the office, often tacking way more time onto my commute home than my wife and kids were likely to understand, much less condone.
When that failed to pan out, my far-flung assumptions and ultimately illogical projections went even further afield. For a spell, I assumed the picture was captured somewhere on Carmine Street in Greenwich Village, then Mott Street in SoHo, then East 8th Street behind Tompkins Square Park, then Weehawken Street in the West Village, then on Gansevoort in the Meat Packing District, then on Vestry Street in TriBeCa … but no dice, no dice, no dice, no dice.
I took the family out for dim-sum down in Chinatown one Sunday, leading them on a semi-circuitous weave through needless backwater lanes on the fleeting chance I’d spot the spot somewhere down there. Again, `twas not to be.
My fixation with finding the photo’s location was becoming an obsession. I was haunted by the familiarity I thought it exuded, but my inability to replicate it was making me lose hope.
But, because the Internet has essentially shrank the world into a very small town where word gets around fast, it turns out that a British friend of mine I know from the ILX Music Discussion Boards — Susan C. (who I’ve never actually met in person) — is also friends with the photographer. Apparently, that photographer had gotten wind of my search, and posted something about it on his Facebook page, prompting Susan to say, “Oi, I actually know that guy — you two should talk!”
And that’s just what she did, introducing me to storied photographer/musician Joe Dilworth (pictured at right circa 1984). Along with having once taken pictures of the Lunachicks, Joe is also responsible for images that grace many a significant album cover, and has played in myriad great bands himself, including Th’Faith Healers, Stereolab and even P.J. Harvey. You can read all about the man via this great piece in The Quietus!
Joe turned out to be a truly excellent and mercifully patient guy, obviously somewhat amused by my bug-eyed fervor to divine the enigmatic location depicted in his portrait of the Lunachicks. Upon “friending” each other on Facebook, I pretty much immediately launched into my questioning, explaining my somewhat ridiculous quest and asking if he remembers tiny details of about a photo shoot with a band that went down 26 years ago.
As it turns out, Joe had grown up in and lived, at the time, in London, and was not a New Yorker. He’d been commissioned to shoot the Lunachicks — then still a relatively new and unknown quantity — so flew over from the UK. For this particular shoot, after “going awol” around the city for a bit, he met up with the Lunachicks prior to a gig at CBGB (of course). While the ladies were doing their soundcheck, Joe had about a few minutes to scout out a few potential locations.
Immersed in the lore of the first Ramones album cover (also taken in that neighborhood by the great Roberta Bayley), Joe envisioned a sort of “gloomy, osteuropäische vibe,” but the girls weren’t having it. Following their soundcheck, Joe and the band had only a few minutes to get the job done. As such, the location of that photograph is “about two minutes walk” from CBGB, as that’s all the time they had.
Okay, so two-minute walk from 315 Bowery, then. Fine, but in what direction? And, really, a “two-minute walk” for one person is conceivably a “five-minute walk” for another. It really depends on how fast you’re walking, where you’re headed, etc.
Joe then did me a true favor and offered to send me the contact sheets from the shoot. He was off on tour with his band, Cavern of Anti-Matter (for whom he plays drums), but promised to e-mail them to me upon his return home to his current digs in Berlin.
And this week, that’s exactly what he did.
The whole series of photographs from that day are, for me, a true revelation. Not only do they disclose the exact location of the shot in question, but they also really capture the essence of a neighborhood that is now virtually unrecognizable. The Lunachicks, meanwhile, are depicted like a madcap gaggle of comely, leather-clad hoods, like a hirsute hybrid of Josie & the Pussycats and the Warriors.
Sure enough, the pictures start off on the Bowery. Here they are posed on the center island between Bleecker and East 2nd Street. I took a shot in pretty much the same exact spot about five or six years later (see below). Today, it’s doesn’t quite exude the same atmosphere.
Mine...
I also like this shot as it showcases the fact that bassist Squid Silver boasts a KISS badge on her leather lapel (cover of Rock'n'Roll Over)
Here's my little boy on the same spot earlier today...
From there, it looks like Joe and the ladies literally just walked about a two-block radius, circling down to Second Avenue.
Eventually they paused at the spot from the original photo…
Here are some others frames from the same spot...
..and here's where my heart started to beat faster....watch as Joe steps back and the camera starts to reveal a bit more detail on the right...
HOLY CRAP, DO YOU SEE THAT??? BEHIND VOCALIST THEO KOGAN'S HEAD?
Should you not recognize the building behind her head, take a look at this Google Maps grab of East First Street between Bowery and Second Avenue....
Yes, we have a match. This also means that the original tenement building at the end of the block in the original photo is the building which featured the XOXO Gallery in its ground floor (which was demolished in 1997, seven years after the original Dilworth photo).
So, there you have it. Now, if you walk down East First Street between Bowery and Second Avenue today, pretty much everything that once made it distinctive is gone. The vacant lot on the western edge of the street (abutting Bowery)...
...is now a Chase Bank.
A little further in, fabled Extra Place (here back in the `90s)....
...is now an antiseptic outdoor mall (of a sort). Here it is looking south from within....
Essentially, in the original photo, the Lunachicks are pictured standing in front of a structure that no longer stands, and hasn't since about the dawn of the new millennium. So much for thinking I'd past it recently.
The reason there's so much light and space in the photo is because they would have been standing across the street from the wide open lot that was behind 295 Bowery (i.e. the rotting edifice of McGurk's Suicide Hall). Towards the eastern end of the block, of course, was the Mars Bar. That's gone, too. For a glimpse of the street as it was, enjoy this oddball snippet from age-old cable access show, The Church of Shooting Yourself (which I wrote about here)....
Just to finish the narrative, after the shoot, the Lunachicks sauntered menacingly back to CBGB's, plugged in and blew the roof off the place...
Today, CBGB is long gone, replaced by John Varvatos' noxious haberdashery. East First Street is now a completely gentrified patch of monied exclusivity, with the exception of the Howl Arts gallery space. Joe Dilworth continues to make music and take pictures. Check out his excellent work here. The Lunachicks themselves have technically been on "hiatus" since about 2000, although they did play a spirited reunion show in 2002.
Today, guitarist Gina Volpe fronts the band Bantam, vocalist Theo Kogan is an actress/model/mom who heads-up the cosmetics company Armour, bassist Sidney "Squid" Silver is the proprietor of Williamsburg's Roebling Tea Room. Original drummer Becky Wreck was last heard of playing in a band called the Blair Bitch Project (oh, mirth) while second drummer, Chip English, currently plays with Suicide King. No word on the whereabouts or doings of second guitarist Sindi (below from the CB's gig above)....
So that's it, really. Mystery solved. I'd love to thank everyone who stuck with me, and Joe Dilworth for his humor and generosity.
Lastly, here's Oliver in (roughly) the same spot this morning....
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