PREAMBLE:
This post ended up being a great deal more complicated than I’d originally envisioned.
As with so many other “photo quizzes” I’ve posted before (like The Stranglers in Gramercy Park, Kraut on East 7th Street, Tom Verlaine on Vesey Street, Joe Jackson’s bar-booth, that long and agonizing search for that Lunachicks shot, to name but a few), there had been a notable couple of images by a certain photographer that had captured my imagination, specifically — just as with the examples above — featuring a favorite band of mine depicted in what I assumed was a location right here in Manhattan. When I felt I had enough of a narrative in place to flesh out a proper backstory and launch another sleuthing investigation for the purposes of a post, I figured I’d cut right to the chase. I gleaned that the photographer in question was still among the living, so I reached out to her by way of her official website. Given the inanely trivial nature of my query (something only the truly geeky fanboy might care about), I did not expect a reply. Imagine my surprise, then, when I got one.
Seemingly amused by my interest in the specificities of the images in question, a representative of that photographer wrote back and confirmed that yes, indeed, the photographer remembered the shoot and counts those images as some of her favorites. The rep also gave me some massive clues as to where the shots may have been taken. That said, he mentioned that he was out of the studio, but that he’d do a little research when he got back. Greatly encouraged and thankful, I wrote back to see if it might be okay if I repurposed a couple of the original images for the purposes of establishing context here on my stupid blog.
There, as Shakespeare’s Hamlet famously exclaimed, was the rub.
As is entirely her right, the photographer in question does not give me permission to publish her images on my blog.
Now, that is, of course, a huge bummer, but I totally get it. They are her pictures, no one else’s. As such, I’ve had to be a little more resourceful and employ a few workarounds, while still respecting the wishes of the photographer.
END OF PREAMBLE
Back in 1979, an intrepid photographer named Roxanne Lowit was drafted for a shoot with an outfit named The Misfits. While they’d only been active for a couple of years, by this point, the band’s ranks had already gone through a number of changes. The iteraiton Lowit was intent on capturing –- featuring vocalist Glenn Danzig and bassist Jerry Only, flanked by guitarist Bobby Steele and drummer Joey Image -– had only congealed in December of the previous year. In January of 1979, that line-up would record three songs, released the following June, that would arguably become the band’s finest hour, that being the “Horror Business” single (above). Shortly afterwards, drummer Image would split, and guitarist Steele would be axed (thus freed to start his own similarly inclined combo, The Undead). But, at the time of Lowit’s photoshoot, the “Horror Business” version of the Misfits was, more or less, a solid unit of happy little punky campers.
Now, as fate would have it, the reason for Lowit’s shoot remains undetermined. Was she drafted by a magazine? Was she recruited by Plan 9 (the band’s own indie label, which was ultimately just Danzig and Only) to shoot promo photos? I’m not sure. Regardless, Lowit ended up taking several photographs of the band during that session that have since gone on to become iconic images. Presumably captured over the course of one evening, Lowit’s pictures of the Misfits perfectly capture the band’s richly cultivated sensibility.
As I mentioned in the preamble, upon reaching out to Ms. Lowit, it was relayed to me that she does not give permission for me to post said images on my blog. That said, those images are out there. From the Lowit shoot, there are shots of the boys fooling around with a child’s toy car, a shot of them standing in front of a gate (standing on what looks like a brain), a shot of them mugging for the camera in attack mode, a shot of them jumping around, a shot of them standing on top of an actual car, and a few others. There are two specific photos from the event, however, that have haunted me.
I cannot remember when I first spied the first captivating shot, but more recently, one can see a distorted representation of it on the cover of the “Max’s Kansas City” bootleg vinyl 7”. Here’s a shot of me holding same.
The image is of the Misfits standing on the concrete lip of a sharp, city corner. I remember originally thinking it looked like a scene from a film from that very year, that being Walter Hill’s urban gang epic, “The Warriors.” They boys are all in black leather, with Only and Danzig dressed up in their undead finery, and drummer Joey Image wearing some rather incongruously frivolous stripy trousers. You can see a slightly better representation of the original photo here.
What’s haunted me about this photograph is, of course — the location. It looks like a familiar spot — maybe a loading dock? — but I have yet to pinpoint it. There’s a bit of graffiti scrawled behind Jerry Only (which is invariably long gone) and some very weathered steps beneath them.
Then, I found a bigger clue. A straight-on shot by Lowit at the same spot. You can see that picture here, but for the purposes of this post, I drafted my daughter to illustrate a rendering of the photo.
This photo has way more information to work with. Note the distinctive trim on the step Danzig’s boots are resting on, and the flat, almost shiny plane on the wall behind the band, around the corner from the concrete lip they’re pictured standing on in the other shot?
After I found this photo, that’s when I reached out to Roxanne Lowit, explaining my curiosity as to where the shoot took place. Was it even in Manhattan (given that the band are technically from Lodi, New Jersey)? Did Ms. Lowit — who is now a renowned fashion photographer — even remember taking these pictures? At the time, the Misfits would not have been that that well known.
In surprisingly short order, an assistant of Lowit’s wrote back, saying:
Roxanne Lowit absolutely remembers this shoot as these are some of her favorite photo's. Hopefully I will be back in the studio next week and will look at the originals and should be able to give you an exact location...for now I can tell you West Village around Washington street near Bethune Street where Roxanne had her studio.
Armed with that information and a print out of the straight-on photo, I set out one Saturday afternoon a few weeks back with my kids to try and find the spot. We trekked all around the area of the West Village in question, but nothing really revealed itself. Granted, in the in almost-forty years (!!!) since these photographs were taken, downtown Manhattan has changed somewhat radically and it’s entirely conceivable that the building in question has been razed to accommodate any number of new developments.
As such, while my suspicion that the spot in question is somewhere around the Westbeth Artists Community, I was unable to find the exact location.
As such, I’m throwing it open — WHERE IS THIS LOCATION?
Get cracking, shot-spotters.
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