Treasure trove of photos taken (mostly) in the East Village, circa 1979 to 1985 by Michael Sean Edwards. Many of these photographs were taken within a few square blocks of where I lived until the early 90s. Leshko’s Coffee Shop, above, was on the corner of the block where I lived, on 7th Street and Ave. A. KIng Tut’s Wah Wah Hut was on the opposite corner and the Pyramid Club around the corner. I’ve eaten in Lesko’s more times than I would care to remember, although I’m sure remnants of my many hundreds of meals there live on in the arteries of my heart. When I finally started making real money, I promised myself that I would never eat there again, and I didn’t for about a decade. I did finally relent and meet Douglas Rushkoff for breakfast there one morning, although by then, it was Leshko’s in name only, having turned into a white plastic upscale hipster joint, with nary a trace of it’s former down-at-heel Ukrainian dinner chic or greasy menu.
 

 
The Valencia Hotel, then a shithole renting $18 rooms to junkies and hookers,now a place that probably charges $450 a night. It was the kind of place where someone like Johnny Thunders would live until he’d get thrown out. A friend of mine who was foolish enough to stay there—and leave valuables in his room—was ripped off badly. Trash and Vaudeville is still there. I used to walk past this place every single day. St. Marks Baths, the infamous gay bathhouse, was a few doors away and had a powerful exhaust that smelled horrible blowing into the street.
 

 
And these guys. New York City used to be FULL of these guys, “popeyes” as they were called, drunks so incorrigible that the gin drinkers’s eyes would pop out of their heads for a certain sort of look. Hence the name. In certain areas, there could be dozens of these fellows on every block letting it all hang out, so to speak. Times Square, 9th Ave., much of Lexington Ave, and especially on 14th Street and 3rd Ave., near the notorious Variety Photoplays grindhouse theater and The Dugout, the lowlife dive bar made famous in Taxi Driver—these were the places where the popeyes lived, but you never see guys like this in New York anymore. Not even on the Bowery.
 
Via Das Kraftfuttermischwerk

I just looked through those photos - beautiful stuff and some really great music history hidden in some of them: CBGB, Max’s, Mudd Club.I still have somewhere a Tumblr-thing, but what I really suckt is fact that only the most real to the real sources left. This is bullshit, I think. Few are willing times more than 10 seconds to invest. Schade, das

Now this is MY neighborhood. I lived on 2nd between B&C from 88-92 and on 5th between A&B from 93 until I moved out of NYC in 2002.

I ate in Leshko’s a lot too. It felt weird to miss it when it turned “hipster”, since I hated eating there so much, but miss it I did.

Two friends of mine (a couple) stayed at the Valencia for a week while they waited for their new apartment to be available for move in. They quite literally had to de-louse themselves when they left. There were crabs crawling around on the beds and towels.

Valencia is now an Ale House.  Besides Trash and Vaudeville, there’s nothing left on St. Marks and in a lot of cases even the stuff that replaced stuff is gone.

Glad to see these photos making the rounds. I posted these on Stupefaction because EV Grieve had posted some, and then Pete at This Isn’t Happiness reposted one from me on tumblr which is where Das Kraftfuttermischwerk found ‘em.

And the circle goes ‘round & ‘round.

Hey, the one on the left likes krautrock.  I think the popeyes relocated to San Francisco.

Those guys are alive and well (ok, maybe not well, but alive) and can be found on the corner of greenpoint and manhattan avenues in greenpoint. I saw two of them getting a simultaneous ski pole hj under some newspapers from a female bug eyed drunk sitting on that corner in broad daylight.  That same woman peed into the subway stairs onto people coming up from the train once too. kind of amazing.