So Far West It’s Nearly In New Jersey
My second NYC apartment sat on the edge of a then-obscure Manhattan neighborhood known as the Meatpacking District
Pressure to move kicked in a day after those heroic firefighters pulled me out of the flaming building. I needed to find a new home in NYC ASAP. My third-floor room was, more or less, as habitable as it had ever been. Smoke damage was contained to the first floor, though the fumy aroma haunted the hallways during my final weeks at 78 Washington Place. Pushing aside the trauma of that fiery August night, I tried to stay focused on the horizon.
I felt desperate, yet also determined not to move into the first available place. At the same time I couldn’t afford to be choosy nor could I risk moving into someplace even more depressing — or dangerous — than 78 Washington Place. Once again, all signs pointed east. The East Village was still dicey, though affordable, not to mention demographically desirable.
I wanted to get the hell out. But investigating a series of East Village apartments ended in frustration: I didn’t hear back about a relatively well-kept studio off First Avenue, and turned down a trim one bedroom in a bombed-out tenement between Avenues A and B. At the latter I decided “no go” when I saw punctured trash bags in the halls and yawning holes in the walls. Though I longed to live in the neighborhood, I needed to feel secure.
In late September I called a building management company, as opposed to the usual real estate agency, in response to an ad in the Times. The advertised apartment in Chelsea had already been rented. As a last ditch appeal, I brought up the recent fire at my current address, and the bland masculine voice on the other end of the line adopted a whole new tone.
“I handled that building for awhile. Oh My God. You’re lucky. We can get you out of there. OK. Go look at 48 Ninth Avenue on the corner of 14th Street. Hold on while I get the super’s number.”
The corner of 14th Street and Ninth Avenue abutted the northern fringe of the West Village. West? So far west it was nearly in New Jersey. I went to see 48 Ninth Avenue after work, heading straight up Hudson Street into the Meatpacking District. Ushered into apartment 9A, first thing I noticed was the back window — I could almost reach out and touch it from the doorway. If my previous studio was small, then this place was a mouse hole. I tried to imagine conducting my home life within these claustrophobic boundaries: eating, sleeping, reading, relaxing. I’d have to exist in this tiny room.
A sink, stove and refrigerator flanked the front door to the left. To the right was a wall. Take half a dozen steps forward and you’d reach the rear wall: two long windows on either side of an ancient radiator, a massive heating unit many times too large for such a small place. Tall ceilings failed to create any illusion of spaciousness. Dull white paint coated every surface.
The closet was barely deep enough to accommodate a jacket. Another door opened onto a narrow bathroom: chipped tiles, battered sink and a paint-flecked white bathtub underneath a shakily installed shower fixture. Lifting the toilet seat, I smiled at the message Magic Markered on the flip side. “I Love You.”
In late September 1981, I signed a two-year rent-stabilized lease for $240 a month.
In the early Eighties, crossing Ninth Avenue and continuing west on 14th Street felt like falling off the map. During the day, the commercial district surrounding far West 14th Street west of Ninth Avenue — the meatpackers’ marketplace — formed a bleak panorama. The streets reeked all day, even after the cobblestones were cleansed of the pre-dawn bloodbath. Open dumpsters and rubber trash barrels lined the sidewalks, filled to the rims with freshly rendered hunks of peppermint-striped animal fat. Forget about rats; in the Meatpacking District the flies were scary.
After dark the warehouses turned into hives of mostly furtive activity. Camouflaged in black leathers, men prowled the shadowy blocks all night long, loners and duos stalking past the packs gathered near a doorway or loading dock. Were there dozens of people walking around on any given night, or hundreds, bar-hopping between the murky nightclubs and after-hours spots? I can’t say. It looked like a lot of guys from across the street.
My home was the stark white three-story building on the north corner. A Greek coffee shop, run by two gruff brothers-in-law who both answered to Georgy, occupied the first floor. The battered sign above the restaurant, missing several letters, read The Old Country Kitchen, but I always regarded the diner as a nameless entity since nobody, including the people who worked there, ever referred to it by that name or any other.
On 14th Street, my downstairs neighbors included: faded Irish bar with live bluegrass music, failing Metro supermarket, busy beer distributor’s outlet, busier bicycle shop, not so busy gypsy fortune teller living with her family in a storefront that doubled as her salon. I walked past the picture window almost every day and never once saw Madame with a client.
Around the corner on Ninth Avenue resided The Old Homestead Steakhouse. A brawny replica steer stood (and still stands) guard over the restaurant’s canopied and carpeted entranceway. Our front door, next to the Old Homestead’s satellite butcher shop Store For Steak, had recently been painted a flagrant shade of red in autumn 1981. Look for a red door underneath the cow sign, I’d tell my infrequent guests. You couldn’t miss it.
There was no intercom system in the building. Any visitors had to bring a dime for the pay phone, and announce their arrival from across the street.
Around the building I hardly ever laid eyes on the other tenants. And when I did, passing them in the hall, the majority registered as taciturn, reluctant, grunting avoiders of eye contact.
There were exceptions. Bette lived right across the hall, with her husband Abe, a disabled man who barely left their studio apartment. She played Mom, always asking how I was doing even though she was obviously struggling with her husband. He must’ve been nearly eighty; she looked younger, maybe sixty. Her face was wizened, worn-out, yet Bette had a ready, raspy laugh. Late afternoons I’d occasionally spot her through the window at the Irish bar, smoking and nursing a Bud bottle. She spoke with a warm Appalachian drawl and smiled often, revealing a mildly disturbing jumble of crooked teeth.
Barry occupied the relatively spacious corner apartment; he was a laidback gay man, right around my age, clean-cut and genial. We got along on the smallest of small talk. His next door neighbor Stanley lived alone. A portly man pushing 70, Stanley sported an obvious toupee and insisted that I take his business card the first time we bumped into each other. Stanley Charles: Theatrical & Show Business Agent. I endured his recruiting pitch. Once. Then I enacted a strict policy of saying no more than “hello” to Mr. Charles.
Gradually, even the eye-contact avoiders became familiar figures.
My apartment was located just off the stairwell, conveniently allowing for quick ins-and-outs as well as guaranteeing a bare minimum of neighbor sightings. A pair of virtually identical women lived next door on the other side: dyed-blondes with military buzzcuts, fire-hydrant bodies and severe demeanors. For months or maybe longer, I assumed this happy couple were the same person and I’m still not completely sure.
Beside Barry two other residents appeared to be roughly around my age. The Horror-Rocker was a skinny peroxide-blond scarecrow, the kind of guy who dutifully wore the punk rock uniform year-round: black leather jacket and jeans, Cramps t-shirt, Converse high-top sneakers. His pallid skin, pained facial expressions and stealthy behavior — I regularly spotted him roaming the hallway late at night — led me to suspect he was a junkie.
His sidekick or partner in crime was a middle-aged woman who lived down the hall. She wore the uniform of a school crossing guard. I often saw her in action at the P.S. near the housing projects on 17th Street, leading children across Ninth Avenue. Theirs was an unlikely relationship to say the least. There was no way they could be a couple. Over time, I came to recognize a small gaggle of shifty-looking young men, including the Horror-Rocker, who gathered in her apartment every day. The presence of a junkie salon in the building raised the possibility of a break-in. So I had inexpensive (and ultimately breakable) window guards installed, and ignored the security threat for the time being.
Even more disquieting was my other anonymous neighbor/peer: the Crazy Guy. He sported shoulder-length reddish blond locks and the bushy beard of an Old Testament prophet, or Charlie Manson. Every Sunday his elderly mother came to visit. I ran into them all the time: sitting in the restaurant downstairs or walking arm in arm, painfully slow, the little old lady and the lug. She was, of course, the only person I saw ever with him.
Most of the time the Crazy Guy hurried past me, eyes fixed on the ground. The few instances when we established eye contact were petrifying. His pupils glowed like bloodshot lasers, inflamed with anger, fueled by unfathomable rage. He made me step back.
Occasionally, a knock on the door would interrupt my reveries. On Sunday mornings I received regular visits from Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists — I learned how to tell the difference.
One Saturday evening I fielded an inquiry from a determined young dude who insisted his sister was hiding from him inside my apartment.
“I know you’ve got her in there!”
I let him take a quick look over my shoulder, and the sight of an empty room apparently calmed him down “Sorry, my man.” After he disappeared down the hall, I realized my heart was pounding
For the most part, nobody bothered me. One benefit of living in the Meatpacking District was close proximity to food. I bought discount groceries from the Western Beef retail outlet one block west, and learned to cook on the creaky gas stove in my apartment. Most of the time, when I wasn’t at work, I became absorbed by the solitary pursuits of reading, writing, watching TV and listening to as much music as humanly possible.
Not long after I moved to Ninth Avenue, my younger brother John performed the Herculean task of transporting my record collection from Ohio to New York in a Volkswagen Rabbit. I bought a decent stereo down on Canal Street, and quickly put it to daily use (until the inevitable burglary in 1983). While I still obsessed on WBLS and the other urban stations (KISS-FM & 92KTU), there were even more unknown realms to be explored on FM radio. Tiny WHBI out of New Jersey was so good on Friday night it could (almost) keep me home: reggae with Jamaican DJ Gil Bailey, followed by hip-hop apostle Mr. Magic’s groundbreaking showcase Rap Attack.
“Saturdays With Sinatra” on WYNY introduced me to Frank’s genius: his sophisticated phrasing and intimate tone, plus the breadth and depth of his repertoire, came as a revelation to my rock and roll ears. Frank Sinatra’s take on the standard “Street of Dreams” spoke to my current living situation. It became a personal anthem, my New York City theme song. “Kings don’t mean a thing on the street of dreams.”
As with many young New Yorkers, living in cramped quarters propelled me outward, into society. And the immediate environs, the neighborhood outside my door, the dank and stinky Meatpacking District, propelled me further still, to the East Village, Soho, Tribeca — any part of town where something was happening. Which in my Manhattan meant downtown. More and more, beginning in late 1981, my life occurred in public places.
