Johnny in The City

Yeah, sorry, it’s another tenuously Sex Pistols-related post. Sort of. Deal with it.

I’ve posted a couple of entires about John Lydon’s tenure in New York City here before, but this video below caught my eye, as he gives some detail about his accommodations here prior to the release of the This is What You Want, This is What You Get album. In this interview from 1983, Lydon asserts that when in New York, he was living in a “huge loft with a stage” somewhere in a “commercial zone.” He then goes on to recount his experience of filming “The Order of Death” with Harvey Keitel (which I discussed back here).

While it’s inarguably true that John Lydon has since become something a laborious provocateur (wasn’t he always?) with a desperate penchant for contrarianism, I am still intrigued by the notion of where he might have been living. 

My first hunch is that the “huge loft” was somewhere in SoHo, which – back in 1983 – indeed was still something of a “commercial zone.” I’m sure the invoked Martin Atkins knows.

Anyway, weigh in, if you know…

Comments

[Colin]

In his book, "Anger is an Energy," he mentions seeing women looking out their prison cells, from his apt window, close to meat packing district. Bayview Correctional Facility was a women's jail on W 20th and 11th ave, so most likely he lived in that area.

[Gregoire]

In his (really good) biography (Anger is an energy), Lydon talks about living in NY and recording PIL albums with American musicians and producers. During this period he explains that he was living in the Meat Packing district. I believe he was somewhere around 10th avenue. A place where he had musicians coming to play and hang out.

[David Marin]

From bedfordandbowery.com :

“Once in New York, he and his PiL bandmates eventually got a 2,500-square-foot loft on West 19th Street, between 10th and 11th. The area was “dirt-cheap and industrial and full of incredibly seedy gay nightclubs like nothing we used to know in England.”