At this risk of creating the impression that Flaming Pablum has become the “All Plasmatics All The Time” blog, I offer this update.
Back in February of 2021, I posted one of a string of deeper-dive entries about minutia relating to the late, lamented Plasmatics, this particular post concentrating on divining the location of their TriBeCa loft, i.e. “Plasmatics World Headquarters.” After a fruitful bit of Google-sleuthing, I determined the former address of Wendy O. Williams and her partner/manager/band-svengali Rod Swenson to have been at 84 Thomas Street, and posted my findings accordingly.
A little while after that, an editor from the TriBeCa Citizen got in touch and asked if it was cool to re-purpose said posts on her website. I said sure, and off we went.
As it happens, it took about exactly a year for TriBeCa Citizen to finally get it on their page, at which point one of their readers, a Bruce E., wrote in about the fifth-floor loft now named Stone Studios, owned by artist Todd Stone. Bruce wrote:
Laurie and Todd Stone have lived there for decades, and Todd is a painter of some renown, having done a series on the World Trade Center after 9/11. Something does not quite match up.
Irked by the notion that my sleuthing was somehow shoddy, I repaired to the internet, and mercifully came up with a new morsel of information. According to the Fall 2019 issue of Downtown Magazine, both the Stone family and the Plasmatics lived at 84 Thomas Street, with a crucial qualifier.
In a story about downtown nightlife in the late 70s and early 80s, writer Matt Kapp wrote:
Rents were cheap, even in places like TriBeCa, where painter Todd Stone moved into a sprawling loft in the late 1970’s. His upstairs neighbors were the punk-metal clan The Plasmatics. “They were the worst neighbors in New York,” he says. “It was World War III every afternoon. And when they weren’t practicing, they were weight-lifting.” Nonetheless, he has fond memories of lead singer Wendy O. Williams (“she was a gusty girl, fearless”) and gives the band some credit for his own creative path, too. “The reason why I am an artist in Lower Manhattan today,” he says, “Is because I could stand living underneath them”
I don’t know which part of this I enjoy more…. the notion of being neighbors with the Plasmatics, or simply the notion of them “practicing.”
So, anyway, there you have it. Both Wendy & Rod and Todd Stone lived at 84 Thomas Street, raising the question: Was “Plasmatics World Headquarters” techinically on the 6th floor, or did Stone Studios take their place after their departure?
While you ponder that, here’s a bit of vintage Plasmatics, filmed at Bond’s Casino in Times Square.
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