Flaming Pablum

Back to Coney Island High

I’ve written long, lengthy, heartstring-plucking entries about both The Upper Crust (most recently here) and St Marks Place (find that here) before, so please avail yourselves to those weepy epistles if you are feeling so inclined. Suffice to say, both are gone, here in 2022.

Earlier this week, I found myself back on St. Marks Place for a reason I can no longer remember. Not unlike certain other byways such as, say, Ludlow Street on the Lower East Side, West 8th Street in Greenwich Village, 21st Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues and/or the westerly regions of Spring Street in SoHo, St Marks Place is a street I have very strong associations with. Like whole nations of other people, for me, this gateway to the East Village used to be a veritable bazaar of cool, bohemian insouciance. Of course, that sounds like a fanciful pastry full-o’-crap today, but it genuinely was this super-cool destination, peppered with so many concerns that exuded its overall punky aesthetic. It was the epicenter, for a long while, of pretty much everything I was looking for from a comparatively underground pop culture that wanted nothing to do what the jocks and the preps and the beautiful kids cared about way north of 14th Street, however ridiculously clichéd that may now sound.

Here in 2022, once again, that St. Marks Place is long, long gone. Between the demolition on its northwesterly corner (still slated to host a sun-blotting corporate tower of some variety) and the proliferation of shoddily assembled and poorly maintained dining sheds, St. Marks Place is in both literal and figurative disrepair. Obviously, this problem isn’t relegated solely to St. Marks (take a stroll south on Thompson Street, some morning, and you’ll encounter a similar situation that affronts the senses), but St. Marks now seems bereft of any of its former character and relative luster. With the possible exception of concerns like Search & Destroy and maybe Funkytown, there’s nothing left for the punks among you, here. All the record and disc shops like Sounds, Mondo Kims, Venus, Free Being and Rockit Scientist are all long, long gone. Ventures that once defined the strip like DoJo and the Grassroots Tavern are similarly missing in action. St. Marks Comics moved to Industry City in Brooklyn, and Trash & Vaudeville moved deeper into the East Village. So much of what made St. Marks Place cool … or even inviting, for me … is gone. It’s a graveyard.

While waiting to hear back from a mercurial vendor, this morning, I was killing time on YouTube and stumbled upon the video below of the Upper Crust in 1998, gracing the stage of Coney Island High, a storied-albeit-comparatively-short-lived live-music venue that used to be smack dab in the middle St. Marks between Third and Second Avenues. Formerly the site that hosted the GREENDOORNYC parties (as mentioned here), the site was acquired by local punk hero Jesse Malin (more about him here and here). I was actually at this show, but Coney Island High was a frequent stop of mine, at the time. Other bands I saw on that diminutive stage include The Damned, The Dickies, Barkmarket, The Dandy Warhols, The Prissteens, DGeneration, The Dictators and Firewater, to name a small few. It was an amazing space that was closed roughly a year after this was recorded by then-Mayor Rudolph Giuliani in his war on New York City nightlife … as if anyone needed another reason to hate that fuckin’ guy.

In any case, here’s a brief taste of what it was like…..enjoy.

Apologies to Yorkville: A Quick Correction

As mentioned within the body of the text, my recent entry about Robert Chambers, Jennifer Levin and Dorrian's Red Hand caused me a little bit of concern that I might get a bit of pushback. To this day, 36 years after the fact, the "Preppy Murder" story is one many people would quite prefer not be invoked, discussed or even alluded to in passing. This is not to suggest that Robert Chambers still has his, for lack of a better term, "supporters" (I sincerely hope he doesn't), but that the whole chapter saddled Dorrian's and its literal generations of loyal patrons with a bit of a tenaciously damning reputation. In much the same way the former concierge and staff of the Chelsea Hotel wished people would stop bringing up Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen in tandem with their business, I'm quite sure the familial proprietors of Dorrian's Red Hand quickly soured on the notoriety that came with the bar's seemingly inexorable association with Robert Chambers. 

I'm not here to mine that story any further (although you should definitely check out the impending second episode of Desperately Seeking the `80's exhumation of the whole saga). That said, I realized, this morning, that I made a shameful geographical error that needs to be promptly cleared up.

I suggested in the --- good lord -- eleventh, needlessly windy paragraph that Ryan's Daughter, a bar I greatly preferred over Dorrian's, was down the street on East 84th between 1st and 2nd Avenues. This is not at all the case. Dorrian's remains on East 84th Street, while Ryan's Daughter is on East 85th Street, goddammit. Given the amount of time I spent there, back in the day, I should really have remembered that accurately. I realize this is a minor point, but wrong is wrong, and I strive for better. 

Being that I haven't lived in the neighborhood in question in 26 years, I cannot say I've stopped in recently, but I am happy to report that Ryan's Daughter is still in business. Their old, vinyl-45 jukebox (which was regularly maintained and updated by a fabulous lady behind the bar with great, punky taste whose name now escapes me) was long-replaced by a more modern machine, but the interior and overall vibe is otherwise unchanged.

Those with a keen eye for detail might still find there a framed cutting from an age-old and long-vanished freebie newspaper called New York Perspectives wherein the bar is rightly praised for being a hidden Yorkville gem and not to bring a "carload of idiots" with you when you come by for a drink. I wrote that one.

A Hot, August Night at Dorrian's Red Hand

It feels strange to discern that despite my blog being topically preoccupied with my youth in New York City, in the 16 plus years I’ve been writing Flaming Pablum, I have only mentioned the fabled Dorrian’s Red Hand in a single instance, and then only in passing.

What makes that strange is that for someone growing up on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, the neighborhood I called home from my birth in 1967 to my departure for the greener pastures downtown in 1996, Dorrian’s was this hugely significant locale, for a lot of folks.

By way of quick explanation, for those who may not be familiar with the establishment in question, Dorrian’s Red Hand (I’ve never been quite sure what the full name was about, but something from hoary Celtic lore, I’m assuming) has been a neighborhood Irish bar perched on the southeast corner of East 84th Street and Second Avenue (directly across the street from former comic-book stronghold, Supersnipe, for all my fellow nerds out there) since 1960. During the height of the `80s, of course, Dorrian’s developed a pronounced reputation for its permissive door policy, making it an absolutely crucial destination for, shall we say, aspiring drinkers of smaller-than-necessarily-legal years. For whatever reason, Dorrian’s rather brazenly got away with serving under-age patrons on the regular, and made a presumably lucrative business doing so.

The odd thing about that, though, was that it was largely perceived as being basically “perfectly okay” by both a nation of (probably equally drinky) UES parents and, evidently, the local constabulary. I don’t ever remember the bar getting busted for what was basically their bread-&-butter business (that being the hawking of booze to minors), but I guess the pervading sentiment was “better at Dorrian’s than somewhere else” (as if Dorrian’s was, like, your kindly grandmother’s basement rec room or something).

That, of course, would all change in the wake of one humid August night in 1986.

I’m referring, obviously, to the notorious “Preppy Murder” case wherein one Robert Chambers left Dorrian’s with one Jennifer Levin. From Dorrian’s, the pair adjourned into the sepulchral darkness of Central Park. At 6:15 the following morning, Levin’s half-naked corpse was found by a tree near the back of the Metropolitan Museum. Chambers was arrested and shortly charged with strangling her during what he continues to allege was a bout of “rough sex.” In pursuit of a bargain, Chambers pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter, for which he was sentenced a five-to-15 year term.

Following the media frenzy that was that strenuously salacious trial, the Levin family understandably went after Dorrian’s, alleging that the bar overserved Chambers that evening, a claim which Dorrian’s later settled out of court. In due course, Chambers went to prison, Levin went to the cemetery and Dorrian’s, more or less, went back to business as usual … well, following a brief loss of their liquor license and some dodgy tax trouble.

The ramifications of the “Preppy Murder” rippled out across the city’s nightlife, and certain businesses all around town that once turned blind eyes were suddenly cracking down and asking for IDs. Many ventures actually closed. I’m thinking specifically about Danceteria on West 21st Street, a club that was known for its similarly permissive stance, although I’ve heard rumors that … there was another reason, but that’s a post for another day.

In the ensuing three decades since that fateful night, Chambers served out his full, 15-year term -– albeit with numerous disciplinary infractions -– and was released in 2003, only to hopscotch in and out of prison for myriad drug offenses over the next several years. As of today, he’s currently incarcerated at the Shawangunk Correctional Facility upstate. He could get out as soon as 2024, but I wouldn’t bet any large sums that he’d be out for long.

Meanwhile, I’ve never really been able to reconcile how Dorrian’s managed to soldier on, following the toxic PR fallout from the “Preppy Murder” case, but somehow, it bounced back. It’s still open and considered a venerable neighborhood institution to this day. I cannot attest to the current scene being in any way comparable to the way it was back in the `80s, but I’ve heard tell that, at the very least, the surface-level trappings are more or less all still there. The awning’s still red. The tablecloths are still the same red-checkered pattern. The jukebox is also evidently still filled with `80s favorites, which is odd, considering that one might have assumed the bar would like to move on from the associations of that era. In the `90s, I actually interviewed their door-minder Kerry for an article I was penning for New York Perspectives about great Upper East Side jukeboxes, although can't remember what I said about it. 

For the longest time, I avoided talking about Dorrian’s Red Hand because, well, it was just never my scene. I mean, I certainly did darken its doors on several occasions, as did countless people from both my grammar and high schools, but never felt particularly comfortable doing so (especially when I was still officially underage). More to the point, though, while I grew up on the Upper East Side and attended the same schools as the regulars at Dorrian’s, I didn’t really share an affinity for that crowd and its accompanying trappings and priorities. I harbored no desire to be perceived as a prep in any capacity. My former brother-in-law once memorably described my sartorial aesthetic as having one foot in Brooks Brothers and the other in CBGB, an uncomfortably incongruous amalgam of styles that found no safe haven in ventures like Dorrian’s Red Hand. The fact that I was also an awkward, pointedly self-conscious geek certainly didn’t help matters.

In the latter half of my high school years, I lived only a couple of blocks away from Dorrian’s, but, of an evening, was usually more likely to be found skulking about on the edifice of the Metropolitan Museum (as detailed here) or tucked discreetly just inside the entry way to Central Park on the southwest corner of 79th & Fifth Avenue, furtively sipping contraband beers in the company of certain comrades next to a boombox playing favorites by Rush, AC/DC and Iron Maiden (we referred to this spot as “Klub 79”). By the time I was actively and legally going to bars, my UES/Yorkville watering holes of choice were either The Gaf on East 85th (long gone) and Ryan’s Daughter on East 84th, just steps off First Avenue. Ryan’s Daughter had a vastly superior jukebox and the diminished likelihood of abject douchebaggery you were likely guaranteed to encounter up the block at Dorrian’s. Also, by this point, I was way more than likely to be headed to points downtown than spending time in the (to my mind, at the time) cripplingly staid environs of the Upper East Side.

But, there’s another reason I’ve been disinclined to delve too deeply into the story of Dorrian’s, Robert Chambers and Jennifer Levin, and that’s because I used to know Robert Chambers.

As fleetingly alluded in a few posts, over the years, “Robert C.” and I both attended St. David’s on East 89th street. Whenever this is invoked “in real life,” I am usually very quick to point out that “when I knew him,” we were both children, presumably prior to his gradual transformation into a thieving, drug-fueled and murderous sociopath. Robert was in the grade ahead of me, but unlike most of the other boys in his class, never lorded that over we underclassmen or treated us like a dick. As an irretrievably hapless nerd, I certainly knew more than my fair share of bullies, but Robert was never one of them. I don’t mean to sugarcoat anything or condone his actions later in life, but when we were schoolmates, Robert was a perfectly good kid. He even saved my friend Spike and I from being robbed and beaten up (as recounted on this ancient post). Sorry if that doesn’t jibe with the popular narrative, but there it is.

But my reasons for never really discussing it here before have less to do with being concerned about besmirching Robert Chambers’ name (I’d suggest he’s already done a fine job of that himself), and more about how the community from which all these figures sprang still seems to feel about it. Perhaps I’ve been entirely projecting, all these years, but I get the sense that a whole lot of folks would rather this story just not be discussed any further. Granted, it’s a dark, ugly chapter that has been irretrievably sensationalized, but one gets the pervasive vibe that that’s not the reason. It still hits home very deeply for a lot of people on a level I’m not entirely sure I can empathize with, and I don’t know that I’ll ever reconcile that.

In any case, the only reason I’m bringing this all up now is that my lovely new comrades over at Desperately Seeking the `80s are devoting two whole episodes of their podcast to the myths, intricacies and fallout of the “Preppy Murder” story, and their deep dives are well worthy of your attention. You can hear part one by clicking right here. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.

Incidentally, while the case predictably inspired a host of horrible made-for-tv movies, the “Preppy Murder” case also went onto inspire several musicians. Along with prompting songs by Hole and The Killers (two bands I have zero fascination for), it also manifested as the topic of the song “Eliminator Jr.” on Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation. Here’s them playing that now, not that you’d necessarily be able to tell it’s about that…

The End of Summer Survey 2022

Cripes, how is it Labor Day Weekend, already? Alright, then, well I guess it’s high time to dust off this meaningless exercise. Let’s dive in, shall we?

Defining Moment of Summer 2022:
This was actually a pretty busy, goddamn summer for us. After two comparatively quiet summers wherein we largely sequestered ourselves at the Lamb Cottage out in Quogue to wait for the vengeful wraith of COVID-19 to pass over us, 2022 promised to be different. With my wife positively gagging to travel, we made plans to break the summer up with our first big, fuckoff vacation since 2019, albeit one that would have to wait until our son Oliver finished his stint as a counselor’s aide up at his camp in Vermont. We decided to go to Greece. Compounding all that, halfway through the summer, my daughter Charlotte made her decision to attend the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, so suddenly we had multiple trips on the books. As a result of that, we decided to forego the Lamb Cottage (we simply couldn’t afford it, with everything else going on) and squatted at my mother’s place in Quogue, in between working and our trips. We were never in one spot for very long, which was actually kind of liberating.

With all this in mind, it’s exceptionally difficult to pinpoint a solitary moment, but I’ll have a stab at it.

I might suggest that my defining moment of Summer 2022 was realizing that the tomatoes on offer from the breakfast bar at our hotel on the island of Paros in the azure splendor of the Aegean Sea were quite possibly the most amazing things I’ve ever put in my mouth. Never mind what you think you know about tomatoes. These were these brilliantly lush, astonishingly flavorful and perfectly formed orbs of fresh deliciousness that pretty much knocked me right off my goddamn chair, every morning. Augmented with some sliced cucumber, a dusting of oregano and lashings of olive oil (I prefer “Sparta,” if you’re doing the grocery shopping, …. and you have to pronounce it like Gerard Butler in a foul mood), and you’ve got yourself a bowl of food that is photogenic, healthy and satisfyingly tasty in a manner that rivals even the most ribald of unmentionable pleasures. Like the sublimest of heroin hits (or so I’ve read), I will invariably spend the rest of my life trying to replicate the experience, always fail and die heartbroken.

Best Purchase of Summer 2022:
I tell ya what WOULD have been the best purchase! That would have been if I’d had the friggin’ foresight to buy myself a huge, fuckoff bottle of the afore-cited Sparta Olive Oil, … but I didn’t. I believe I can find some if I go to Queens, though.

With most of our money fueling our multiple trips to Vermont, Greece and Scotland, this year, I can’t say I did a lot of libidinous spending, although I’ll cop to splurging on some deluxe, surround-sound re-releases of albums by XTC, Dukes of Stratosphear, KISS and Yes, all remixed by studio wizard Steven Wilson. Several years back (2014, maybe?), I’d picked up Wilson’s re-mixing of XTC’s crucial Drums & Wires but, and I’m somewhat embarrassed to admit this, never really got around to giving said re-release a proper, attentive listen until a long bus trip this summer. Unlike a standard-issue remastering — wherein the end result simply sounds like a louder version of the album as you remember it, Wilson’s lushly detailed remixes genuinely offer whole new, multi-dimensional listening experiences. Hearing Wilson’s re-rending of Drums & Wires was like that moment in “The Wizard of Oz” wherein the film shifts from black and white into maddening technicolor. There was space and depth and expanse like I’d never gotten from the record before, revealing all sorts of sonic filigree that had previously been buried in the comparatively claustrophobic original. Drums came rumbling from overhead, guitars chopped, clanged and careened off walls, Andy Partidge’s hiccupy yelp darted around, dueling with Colin Moulding’s sinuous bass lines, all kinetically flowing around like slippery fish in an aquarium. Put simply, I was entirely blown away. When I was back in the WiFi, I immediately sought out more, discovering Steven Wilson’s Instagram page, and immediately ordering similar remixed editions of XTC’s Black Sea and Skylarking, the collected discography of the Dukes of The Stratosphear (XTC’s psychedelic alter egos), Fragile by Yes and the super-mega-whatever anniversary edition box set of Destroyer by KISS. This last one was, somewhat typically, a bit of a let-down, as Wilson’s version is contained only on a BluRay disc, and I lack the hardware to play that particular format. Leave it to KISS to rip you off, am I right?

Best Movie You Saw During Summer 2022:
The only movie we went to was Baz Lurman’s Elvis movie, … which felt like one, long trailer. I mean, it was enjoyable, I suppose, but not really a massive cinematic achievement or anything.

Best Gift You Received of Summer 2022:
I’m not complaining, but I can’t say anyone gave me any gifts over the course of the summer.

Biggest Loss of Summer 2022:
My organization underwent a surprise “course correction,” and 10% or our workforce was laid off. I was away when it went down, and thus didn’t get the opportunity to say goodbye to some of my now newly former colleagues.

Song That Best Sums Up Summer 2022:
Well, in terms of new stuff, I really liked “Cracker Island” by Gorillaz, “Chaise Longue” by Wet Leg and, yet another great song by a stupidly-named band, “Scratchcard Lanyard” by Dry Cleaning, but if there was one song that summed up the summer for me, it might be “Rip It Up” by Orange Juice, which I listened to a lot in advance of our trip to Scotland. Julian Cope finally released a studio version of “Cunts Can Fuck Off,” but it doesn’t measure up, to me, to his widely circulated live renditions of the track.

Happiest Memory of Summer 2022:
Y’know, they’re still both teenagers, which means that whatever it was that we were up to, at the time, there was still the requisite amount of eye-rolling, pushback and petulance, but having both of our kids with us on the trip to Greece was genuinely blissful, for the wife and I.

Saddest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’ll say most bittersweet, rather than sad, but having to say goodbye to our daughter Charlotte in Scotland for her international student induction was exceptionally hard, not least in that the temporary housing we left her at (albeit only for two weeks before she moved into her official dorm) wasn’t quite as picturesque as the rest of the campus (more brutalist internment camp than old world gothic masonry). My wife had been a rock for the whole time we were there, but fell apart at the final moment, which meant I had to be the composed one. I fell apart, meanwhile, on the plane ride home.

Scariest Memory of Summer 2022:
I’d been advised to bring my work phone and laptop on both of my trips. I grumbled about it, but ultimately complied. A day after landing in Edinburgh, I dutifully checked my email, in the morning, to see what had been transpiring in my short absence from the office. In my inbox was a letter from the president and CEO of the organization, informing us that they were laying off 10% of the staff (as mentioned above). For several minutes, I genuinely feared that I wouldn’t have a job to come home to (and this while delivering my daughter to a university and all that that entails). I was shortly reassured by my manager that I was still employed and started breathing normally, again, but …. yeah, that was a shock to the system.

That said, I did have another moment that's worth adding here. On our third day on the island of Paros, my wife had booked us a boat-tour on a catamaran around the island and surrounding waters. It was an incomparably lovely day, and we dropped anchor three or four times to swim off the boat. Now, both of my children are lithe, fit, robustly healthy teenagers. They wasted no time in diving right into the disarmingly cerulean waters of the Aegean, followed in immediate course by my wife.

Then it came my turn. 

Not wanting to be a party pooper (and this is tragically on video, I hate to say), I followed suit and plunged into the water. Instantly submerged in the cool water, I felt an immediate sense of impossible insignificance. We were anchored in a beautiful lagoon, but the winds had picked up during the morning, and the water was summarily a little choppy. I surfaced and found myself about a yard from the boat. After orienting myself, I was suddenly another couple of yards from the boat. While my children happily swam about, I started privately wondering if, as a 54-year-old in frankly not as great shape as I could be in, I might have a problem sustaining the stamina to make my way back to the boat. I was having flashbacks to "Open Water 2," a genuinely disquieting 2006 thriller wherein a group of pleasure boaters find themselves unable to make it back onto their yacht after jumping in for a swim without putting a ladder down. I also didn't want to be the guy that had to be helped back up. I paddled about a bit and discreetly re-boarded the boat with my heart pounding. 

When we dropped anchor a second time in a more open channel, I couldn't do it. I sat on the edge of the boat and watched my wife and children frolic in the waves, but could not bring myself to jump back into those crystal waters. It wasn't a fear of any sea life or anything (you could see clearly to the bottom -- there was none). It was that paralyzing fear of my own smallness in the vastness of the sea and my insecurity that I'd have the strength to save myself. It was a strangely chilling experience. When we dropped anchor a third time in a placid little cove (see below), I knew I had to overcome this problem before it consumed me. With the waters calmer than before, I again jumped in. My kids immediately swam off to explore some nearby caves (that was never on the menu for me), but I stayed near the boat, doing a few laps around the vessel and trying to regain my composure. 

Word That Best Describes Summer 2022:
Transitional

Back to The Blue Willow

I’ve been very lucky, over the years, to have found people for whom my weird little posts resonate. I’m always skeptical that some trivial factoid that I’m all hot and bothered about will actually connect with a reader that shares that particular enthusiasm, but every now and then, it happens. I’m also continually amazed that some items that I just blithely mention in passing get latched onto and widely circulated. Which stories find their audience and why are not an exact sciences, by any stretch.

In any case, this entry is something of a minuscule follow-up to one of those stories I was somewhat inexplicably all fired up about upon first posting it. Technically, all it’s really about is a room in a long-vanished restaurant where a photograph was taken, but something about the story has always continued to haunt me. Let’s see if I can capably encapsulate it.

Back in 2013, I put up a post titled “Searching for the Blue Willow.” The Blue Willow, by way of explanation was an eatery on the northeast corner of Broadway and Bleecker Street that was allegedly open between October of 1983 and some point in 1990. I never dined in that establishment, I’m sad to say, but it was notable to me in that I’d gleaned that one of its rear chambers had served as the location for the photograph that graced the cover of one of my favorite albums of all time, that being Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves by Gavin Friday and The Man Seezer. Here’s that cover now.

Cool, right?

Exuding a beguiling air of what I called “elegant decrepitude” in that first post, the sleeve of Each Man Kills… features Gavin Friday, former singer in Dublin’s macabre post-punk combo, the Virgin Prunes, leaning with louche aplomb against the piano of musical co-conspirator Maurice Seezer, depicted with his back to the viewer as he presumably plays. Beneath a stylishly distressed wall of stripped wallpaper, a nude couple embraces next to a glowing jukebox. Snapped by renowned Dutch rock photographer Anton Corbijn, the image says absolutely nothing about the era in which it was captured. It’s a mysterious picture that perfectly matches the sound, sentiment and sensibility of the album it sheathes. You’d never know that, at the time this photo was taken, the pop charts were caked with idiotic offal like “I’m Too Sexy” by Right Said Fred and “Gonna Make You Sweat” by C+C Music Factory, but I digress.

I have no idea whose idea it was to shoot the cover and accompanying promo images and single sleeves in the Blue Willow, but I can only imagine Gavin had happened upon it and been enchanted by its noirish, old-world atmosphere. Or maybe it was just a lucky fluke. Regardless, when I learned the name and the location of the restaurant (regrettably over a decade and a half after it closed its doors), I was immediately compelled, as detailed in that first post, to check out what was in that space in 2013.

At the time, of course, it was a douchey menswear emporium called Atrium who leant out its rear space — the very chamber where the the sleeve of Each Man Kills… was taken — to a pricey sneaker concern called, inexplicably, KITH. As you’ll see back on that first post, only traces of the original details of Corbijn’s cover could still be seen, notably the flooring and some of the marble trim that was depicted in some of the other photos from the shoot.

A couple of years after that, I posted a quick follow up to report that even those remaining elements were, by that point, covered up.

That was pretty much that. I remember posting the original piece on a discussion board about Gavin Friday and the Virgin Prunes. Already converted to the cause, so to speak, that community was duly intrigued and appreciative, but the layperson probably doesn’t care too much. But I remained so intrigued by the Blue Willow and always wanted to see more.

The only problem was…. there wasn’t much out there about it. I forget where I’d found it, but I did have an image of a matchbook from the place, as well as a fleeting mention of the eatery taken from a 1984 article in the Times about its then-slow-gentrifying neighborhood. Here’s the crucial mention from that piece.

'Back then, Lower Broadway was a bankrupt neighborhood with bums lying around in doorways,'' said Martin Fine. Mr Fine, a lawyer, owns the four-month-old Blue Willow restaurant at 644 Broadway at the corner of Bleecker Street. All the food in his restaurant is cooked without salt. Mr. Fine also owns the building it occupies, a former bank with handsome moldings and chandeliers. ''A few of us bought buildings here because we knew that someday the area would be hot,'' Mr. Fine said.

Where is Martin Fine today, one wonders.

In any case, beyond the images on and associated with Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves and that matchbook, I had no other visual ephemera to pair with the place.

Until today.

For no readily apparent reason, I was doing some random Googling, as I’m wont to do, and thoughtlessly entered the words “Blue Willow” and “Bleecker.” While the same images I’d posted on my blog about the Gavin Friday album came right up, a link to the Poster Museum also came up with a “vintage poster” of the place that practically blew a new part in my hair. Here’s the prefacing text.

"644 Broadway Corner Bleecker Street. New York, New York. Open Late."

Original vintage poster for a Chinese restaurant, the Blue Willow. The poster illustration features a bustling dining room, a waitress incoming with a majestic peacock on a platter—not to be eaten, I hope!

Artist: Kristen Johnson

Year: c. 1975

Condition: Fair, please note some small tears along the poster's perimeter. The appearance of tears can be significantly improved by having the poster linen-backed.

Here’s the image now….

Anyone notice the discrepancy?

Clearly, this is the very same Blue Willow, given the correlating address, but the Poster Museum believes this artifact dates back “circa 1975,” when, by the fleeting accounts I’ve tracked down, including the afore-cited New York Times piece, the restaurant didn’t open until 1983.

Like I said, this probably means so much less to most folks than it means to me, but the fact that since 2013, I’ve been able to discern that the Blue Willow boasted a kind of Belle Epoque vibe, served Chinese food and prepared its fare without any salt helps complete the picture.

Here in 2022, I can report that Atrium has since closed and vacated the premises at 644 Broadway. Noxious footwear concern KITH, meanwhile, decamped and moved a block to the east, taking over the old “Peace Pentagon” building that used to house Paper Tiger TV and Marty’s Cool Stuff.

Gavin Friday went onto release on a few more truly excellent albums before focussing predominantly on soundtrack work. His last proper solo album was 2011’s Catholic.

That ground-floor space at 644 has now been vacant, dormant and covered up since well prior to the pandemic. I am unrealistically hoping that whatever venture next occupies that space sees fit to restore some of the hidden trappings first captured on the sleeve of Each Man Kills…, but with my luck, its next iteration will be a AT&T cell phone outlet.

Some sonic context...

Greece is The Word

Hello again, all. I have returned from the cerulean splendor of Greece.

I, of course, have loads of anecdotes, observations, cheeky asides and ruminations to share about our vacation to that beautiful place, but I’m still quite jetlagged, scrambled and tryikng to manage re-entry with a minimum of turbulence, so I think I’m just going to let some photos tell the story, for now. Suffice to say, it is indeed a magical destination that is well worth your time. We spend four or five days on Paros Island and four or five days in Athens.

Back to University Place: Fancy a Pint at Smith's?

The shot above was taken by one Richard Greene in about 1974. It was snapped on my own strip, University Place, just above East 13th Street. Were you to stand in this same spot today, you would essentially be standing in front of the newly-truncated Basics Plus hardware store. The southeast corner, until recently a juice bar, is currently occupied by a new deli.

In 1974, however, that corner was evidently held by Smith's Bar. Personally speaking, I don't remember a Smith's Bar on that particular corner, but I would have been very young, at the time. When I first moved into the neighborhood in the `90s, that space was occupied by a noodle restaurant. As described in this post from 2012, that venture suffered a fire and was then taken over by a Vietnamese restaurant. After that it became a sprawling, two-level hardware store, Basics Plus, with its own corner juice bar. That closed after several years, and the space was divided up again. A new, smaller and markedly less fabulous Basics Plus opened, and that afore-cited new deli took the corner space. 

In 2022, there aren't nearly as many bars along University Place as there used to be. Obviously, the Cedar Tavern is long gone. Jazz-bar Bradley's morphed into the douchey Reservoir which, despite rumors, never left. Our local, the Knickerbocker, is still going, but has kind of lost a bit of its luster, if I'm being honest. I would love to have Smith's Bar back, but I'm not holding my breath. That establishment clearly belongs to another era. 

On that post from 2012, a reader named Mykola shared thoughts about the bar...

On that corner in the late 1960s was Smith's bar, which used to be all over the city. A great place that served you beer or booze but also had a kitchen making corned beef sandwiches, knishes etc. I used to go there for lunch very often when I worked at Grove Press on 11th Street and University. Barney Rosset, the owner of Grove, who had recently passed away, always used to pop in for a pick-me-up drink. Ah, those were the days...

Sounds pretty great, right? Oh well. 

Funnily enough, my next-door neighbor actually gave me a Smith's Bar t-shirt (I have doubts about its legitimacy) several years ago. At that time, I only knew about the Smith's Bar on 8th Avenue in Hell's Kitchen. My friend Rob D. lived in that neighborhood, and we were always taken by its signature neon signage and its refreshingly unpretentious vibe. I have yet to find any other photos of this University Place iteration, but I'd be super curious to see more depictions of it. 

Back … Again … to Magickal Childe

At the risk of alienating vast, huge swathes of what remains of my readership, here’s yet another update on that silly Magickal Childe photo, which was last invoked here.

By request of my friend Howard, I blew up a few prints of the thing and mailed one off to him. I also figured that the new proprietors of the space at 35 West 19th Street – now Vinyl Steakhouse -- should have some sort of documentation of their restaurant’s former incarnation, so I slipped one in an envelope and dropped one off for them. Evidently, they’re currently offering a signature cocktail in honor of the occult emporium’s namesake, so be sure to ask for that.

Tell’em I sent ya, … see where that gets ya.

The Photograph (Slight Return to Magickal Childe)

Just a quick follow-up to this post. Being that this photo keeps getting strangely invoked every couple of years, I figured I’d dig out the negative to make some better prints of it. My friend Howard (invoked here, a million years ago) actually expressed interest in getting a blown-up print of it, so that’s what I did. Honestly, it’s a wee bit darker than I’d prefer, but it’s still pretty nice. I made a few, so if you’re interested, as well, do let me know.

Once again, here in 2022, the space that once was Magickal Childe at 35 West 19th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues is now slated to open up in May as Vinyl Steakhouse. Find out more about that venture right here.

Meanwhile, here's a glimpse of Magickal Childe in it's hellfire-flecked heyday...

ADDENDUM: In searching around, I also happened upon this video ... an homage to Magickal Childe by an ensemble called Cruz Machine. My photo again appears here about three minutes in, wherein they try to conjure its return...(and still I get no credit). Anyway, enjoy...

The Photograph

Okay, here’s another kinda convoluted one.

At some point in the spring or summer of about 1997, I snapped a picture of the storefront at 35 West 19th Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, which was a shop called Magickal Childe. I’ve spoken about it before, here, quite a few times, but Magickal Childe was essentially an occult emporium, selling esoteric books and black magic knickknacks for spells, rituals, ceremonies, conjurings and the like. It was the perfect gift shop for all the Aleister Crowley acolytes in your family. A lot of folks spoke about Magickal Childe in hushed, ominous tones, but I never felt any sense of dread or unease in the place. The one item I remember actively buying there was an inverted pentagram pendant because,….well… METAL!

Personally speaking, Magickal Childe, to me, always embodied that now-rarefied essence of New York City. It was this wildly niche sorta concern that catered to a very specific demographic, but was still a thriving venture, very much an “only in New York” sorta place. It was there for several years, as I remember, until it closed in 1999, in the wake of the death of its proprietor, a guy named Herman. The vacated space at 35 West 19th Street became a tapas restaurant, as reported here, named Sala in 2004 and lasted until the pandemic forced its closure in 2020. Today, the space is in transition, but there are signs in the window that say “VINYL STEAKHOUSE,” suggesting a strange amalgam of record store and steak joint. Not quite sure how that works, but I being that I like both records and red meat, I wish them all success.

In any case, back in 1997, I was genuinely fascinated with Magickal Childe, so I snapped that picture. Those with a sharp eye for detail might notice that I even appear in the photograph, reflected in a mirror in the center of the shop’s window (just underneath and slightly to the left of the gold pentagram). I had no agenda in capturing the image beyond thinking it just looked cool.

Some years went by, and I ended up posting the photograph, along with several others, on an entry on this stupid blog under the title “Things That Are Not There.” As it turns out, photographs of Magickal Childe must be few and far between, as people started to reach out to me about it. I fielded a request from one reader to sell a print of it to him. I think I just ended up sending him a copy of it free of charge. I didn’t think much of it.

Years after that, some readers might remember my laborious search for the location of a certain photograph of the Lunachicks. When I finally got in touch with the photographer, a guy named Joe Dilworth, he graciously emailed me the contact sheet with the mystery photo in it. Along with the answer to my quest, that contact sheet also boasted a shot of the Lunachicks chatting with this guy who looked strangely familiar. I swiftly deduced that the guy in question was the same kid depicted in some age-old hardcore matinee photos by Drew Carolan. I realize this is all very confusing, but bear with me. As if on cue, that kid — named Anderson Slade — bizarrely got in touch with me out of the blue on Facebook. By this point, he was no longer a little punk rock kid from Staten Island, but now an aspiring actor and filmmaker who was putting together a documentary about Magickal Childe and wanted to use my photograph. I said “sure,” and then let him know about the photo of him and the Lunachicks, which blew his mind. You can read a more detailed about that whole chapter here.

Slade’s documentary, entitled “Horrible Herman’s Warlock Shop,” was in development for quite a while, and even had some trailers posted on YouTube, but those have since been taken down and there’s no news of any release dates. Anderson Slade is also no longer on Facebook. The plot thickened.

Cut to 2022. With the wife in London for the London Book Fair, I am suddenly free to watch stuff on television that I wouldn’t normally be able to. As such, I start watching “Sons of Sam: Descent into Darkness,” a four-part documentary series on Netflix that explores one investigative reporter’s feverish quest to break the story that David “Son of Sam" Berkowitz did not act alone. Even as a sniveling ten year old during the summer of 1977, I still vividly remember the atmosphere of paranoia that gripped New York City, so have always been fascinated with the story. Here’s the trailer…

In any case, halfway through the first episode, they start discussing the uptick in fascination with the occult in the `70s, stemming from disillusionment with the hippy ideal of the late `60s. In doing so, they start showing images of Wiccan ceremonies, illustrations from the Rosicrucian secret histories of the world, Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan, Aleister Crowley and …. fleetingly … MY PHOTOGRAPH OF MAGICKAL CHILDE.

I instantly sat up from my bowl of General Tso’s chicken and hit pause. What the fuck, Netflix? I don’t remember being asked about use in any Son of Sam doc. Laughably, I suddenly felt sort of violated, but then…. given the already-established paucity of images of the exterior of Magickal Childe, outside of screenshots from the Nicholas Cage film “Vampire’s Kiss” in which the shop makes a cameo, mine seems to be the first thing that comes up in a Google image search. Being no stranger to liberally appropriating images for this blog, I shouldn’t be surprised. But still, having a rinkydink blog post a pic without due credit is one thing — use in a major feature film on Netflix is another.

I started combing through my emails, with friends' voices in my head shouting “you can SUE them!” I wasn’t really interested in any financial gain from this, I was just kind of curious how they found it and a little hurt that they didn’t see fit to ask me if they could use it.

Then I figured it out.

Chalk it up to the fog of the pandemic or the steady erosion of my short-term memory, but in July of 2020, a company called “Radical Media” apparently reached out to me to say they were putting together “a documentary series for Netflix that features a storyline about the occult presence in NYC back in the 1970s and 80s, and we wanted to feature a photograph of the occult book shop Magickal Childe. It turns our there are very few photographs easily accessible, but a photo that you took of the storefront is one that comes up and is of good quality."

Evidently, I said “sure, no problem,” and even signed a release. I did not charge them anything for the use. They asked how I’d like to be credited, and apparently I wrote “Alex S./Flaming Pablum” in the email.

I watched the first episode to the end credits. Under the “photos courtesy of…” section, neither my name nor my blog’s dumb name came up. I watched the second, third and final episodes. A credit was never mentioned. I guess my signed release absolved them of that necessity, but that still kind of bummed me out.

That petty affront notwithstanding, I still recommend “Sons of Sam.” If you’re a bona fide New Yorker and a true crime buff, it’s a fascinating series, however grim (what? you were expecting frivolity??)

I was running errands earlier this week, and found myself not far from 35 West 19th Street, so took a short detour to revisit it.

Here’s how it looks today.