Someone posted the photo below on Facebook, and it immediately got the wheels a-turning.
This is, of course, the greatest living American, Iggy Pop, louchely perched aside the vehicle of New York’s Bravest. Ig’s looking comparatively young, here, so I’m going to guess this was taken at some point in the early `80s. In any case, when I spied the terraced building on the left-hand side of the photo, I thought of the giant, white-bricked building on the corner of East 9th Street and Third Avenue (where Joey Ramone used to live), which would put Iggy on the northeast corner of St. Marks and Third Avenue, a locale he would have lived relatively close to in that era (for certain spells, Iggy had an apartment on Mercer Street, and then later in the Christadora House on Avenue B). Here’s the corner of St. Marks and Third, more or less, today….
Sure, they look kinda similar, but several things don’t quite add up to make this a lock.
The firetruck Mr. Pop is leaning against is emblazoned with (as far as we can surmise) the legend FDNY 16. According to some quick Googling, the firehouse for FDNY Engline 16/Ladder 7 is on East 29th Street. That’s neither here nor there, really, but what would a firetruck from East 29th Street be doing on St. Marks Place?
There’s a bit of signage at the top of the photo for a concern called “Ernest Lo Nano Interiors.” Further Googling reveals that said establishment was perched at 201 East 67th Street.
Et voia….
It’s partially obscured by trees, but I think this is the corner, although that does not explain why a firetruck from 29th Street (if that’s even accurate) was there, much less why the great Iggy Pop was in that neighborhood of the comparatively sleepy Upper East Sid.
That’s as far as I got.
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