NYC

Remembering 9/11

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Preface- I lived in Manhattan through September 11, 2001 unscratched. I lost no one I personally knew in the attacks (as far as I know), but we all lost 2,713 irreplaceable New Yorkers. 20 years later, 9/11 remains one of the most unforgettable days in my life. My days in the World Trade Center area go back to before the construction of the Twin Towers. Then, the weeks after the attacks were equally gut-wrenching. In Remembrance of the victims on the 20th Anniversary of the 9/11 attacks I decided to share my experiences and the pictures I took of the World Trade Center before, on 9/11, and after, for the first time, not because I think they are anything outside of the ordinary, but because they are just that- the memories of one average person living in Manhattan on September 11th, 2001, of the World Trade Center, the attacks, and the weeks immediately after. 

Looking up at Tower 1 on the right, Tower 2 on the left over World Trade Center 6, the black shape, right, and a piece of World Trade Center 5, on the left. Vesey Street, June 20, 1998.

1- Witness to Unspeakable Horror

September 11th, 2001 marked the first of the “life will never be the same” moments that have characterized the first century of the new millennium, the latest of which we are all still living, wherever we are. Wherever we were that September morning 20 years ago as this was happening here, in Washington DC, and in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, I doubt many of us had any idea what was really happening and how all of our lives would change.

I didn’t.

Just unimaginable. The view from my window shortly after 9:05am on 9/11/2001 showing the North Tower, 1 World Trade Center, on fire.

I woke that morning at 9:05am. I switched on NY1, the local news station to get the weather, as was my habit each morning. When the set came on, I saw a stunning image through my waking eyes. Smoke coming out of the top of the World Trade Center! What? HOW is that possible? They were saying “a small plane” had crashed into it. As we know now, at 8:46am, hijacked American Airlines Flight #11 had been purposely crashed in to the North Tower.

Dwarfing everything. The Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center, the taller brown building in front of them, seen on June 20, 1998. I remember the neighborhood before the WTC, and the white College of Insurance in front of it, were built. It all looked like the rest of the buildings in the picture. For a look at the destruction of the area to build the WTC check out Danny Lyon’s PhotoBook The Destruction of Lower Manhattan.

A little over 8 months earlier I had been to the Windows On The World Restaurant at the top of Tower 1 (the North Tower, the first to be hit on 9/11, the Tower on fire in the picture earlier) for a company holiday party, the second time in 3 years the company had held it there. For those who never set foot inside either Tower of the World Trade Center, I’m sorry. You really can’t begin to imagine it. From a distance, the WTC is the highest thing in sight, visible in almost every picture of the NYC skyline. It was visible for almost an hour away on various roadways approaching Manhattan. As you moved closer and closer to it on the street, it’s height went from gigantic (above), to overwhelming (as in the first picture in this piece) to impossible, as in the following picture-

Standing at the base of World Trade Center Tower 2 with Tower 1 looming above on June 28, 1998. If I lowered my head, at eye level was a magnificent Tapestry by Joan Miro on display right beyond the girders in the lobby. Created in 1974 by the great Spanish Artist himself by hand for the building, it was also destroyed on 9/11.

Each building contained 110 stories! Looking up, you couldn’t see the top. As if 110 stories in each Tower, wasn’t enough, each floor was an acre in size. That fact still staggers me.

Riding up to the top was a special experience, even here, in the land of very tall buildings. With “local” and “express” elevators, it was a little like taking a vertical subway. When I got to Windows On The World, of course, I had to look down from those windows, though I’m deathly afraid of heights. I never made it to the roof, but this was close enough. Looking down, at night, was like being in an airplane and looking down on dots of light far below you. I really couldn’t make much else out. 

The World Trade Center and I went back a long way, to before there was a World Trade Center when it was “Radio Row.” My father had an office two blocks from the WTC for 45 years. He used to take me to work there on Saturdays and in the summer as a kid, which I absolutely hated. We used to park under the old West Side Highway at Vesey Street and I’d walk along the site of the WTC as the towers and the complex were being built after the area had been demolished to make way for it. I went to work, two blocks away, the day of Philippe Petit’s incredible walk between the two Towers on August 7, 1974. Over the years, I frequented the legendary J&R Music World on Park Row, one block east of the WTC, and I was there two and a half weeks before 9/11. I lived about a mile and a half from the Trade Center.

That morning, after seeing the smoke on TV, I opened my curtains and, sure enough, I could see from my windows the North Tower was on fire! After dressing, I walked out of my building heading east. As I got to 7th Avenue, I asked someone what happened. He said a plane had flown down 7th and crashed into the World Trade Center! So much happened that day, and the weeks after, that thought didn’t really hit me right away. Later, as I put the whole thing together, I got it-

The first plane (American Airlines Flight #11) on 9/11 had flown down my block!

People frozen in their steps in disbelief, unable to tear themselves away from the horror unfolding in front of them to the left on 6th Avenue around 9:30am on 9/11.

In the months that followed, somehow my sleeping mind grasped this thought my conscious mind had forgotten and concocted a nightmare in which the passengers of the first plane, Flight #11, realized in those final minutes what was going to happen, and jumped the hijackers (no doubt influenced by what really happened to Flight #93 in Pennsylvania) causing it to crash early- into my building!

On the corner of 6th Avenue, there were crowds of people looking at the Towers directly down the street. I pressed on to get to work. On 5th Avenue, that scene was repeated with many more people who lined the Avenue on both sides as far as I could see down. 

The view down 5th Avenue with both Towers on fire just before 10am on 9/11.

By now, it was close to 10am and BOTH Towers were on fire, the second plane having hit the South Tower, a bit lower than the first had hit the North Tower. 

On 5th Avenue, people strain to watch a tiny TV set perched on the widow of a truck, just visible beyond the woman’s blue blouse, as the horror was unfolding to their left at about 10am, 9/11.

I checked in at work. Other staff members were there but most were listening to the radio. Nobody was working. I went back out to 5th Avenue to watch again. When I got there, I immediately realized the South Tower was gone! It had collapsed!

The South Tower had just collapsed leaving something I could never imagine seeing- only one Trade Center Tower standing. Seen on 5th Avenue.

As I said, unless you’d been to the WTC, you have no idea how immense they were. HOW could one collapse?? As it turned out, most New Yorkers, including the first responders, apparently had no idea the Towers being about the biggest thing in NYC could ever collapse. It’s hard to articulate the feeling of seeing something impossible right in front of you. The fires looked like terrible fires, but I’m sure most people felt they would be put out. But, no! That MASSIVE building had collapsed! 110 acres of steel, glass and people were somehow just gone. That was the first realization that our long-held unassailable assumptions were assailable. I remembered hearing someone say years ago that if one of those buildings ever fell it would destroy everything for blocks around in that direction. Having lived for must of my life with those Twin Towers defining the famous skyline of Manhattan. Now, there was only one!, it too was on fire, and had been for longer than Tower 2 was!

A few minutes later, as I stood there in a crowd of fellow New Yorkers, I saw THE most horrific thing I’ve ever seen in my life happen right in front of my eyes.

Tower 1 collapsed.

The North Tower, World Trade Center 1, in the midst of collapsing at 10:28am.

It looked like it happened in slow motion. A huge, eerie, grey cloud slowly rose where it had stood, and kept rising. I stood there open-mouthed watching in utter horror. How many people did I just watch die? 

After watching Tower 1 collapse, my immediate thought was – What’s gong to happen next? I immediately turned around 180 degrees. There, 13 blocks behind me, straight up 5th Avenue, stood the Empire State Building. In 1945 a B-25 Bomber, a large plane indeed, had accidentally crashed into it. Yet, it remained standing after that, and it was still standing now.

The scene after both Towers had collapsed around 10:45am leaving billowing clouds of smoke that would last for days.

Numb, and in a state of shock, I headed back to my office. We closed for the day. Some of my co-workers began the walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. I headed back across town. I dropped my bag off and headed back out with my camera. 

West Side Highway at Houston Street as far as the NYPD was letting pedestrians go on the afternoon of 9/11.

I walked over to the Hudson River, where you could see the WTC all the way down. As I started walking along what is now Hudson River Park, a steady stream of Emergency & construction vehicles sped past me on the Highway. At Houston Street, a bit north of Canal Street, all pedestrian, and non-emergency related traffic was stopped. I stood there for a few hours, most of which was spent watching the biggest cloud of smoke I’d ever seen rising up then bending over east towards Brooklyn (which was a lucky thing, for me, at least, as it turned out).

7 World Trade Center collapses at 5:20pm. Seen from Greenwich Street, September 11th.

Finally, I headed inland. As I reached Greenwich Street, it was now 5:20pm. Just as I got there, 7 World Trade Center collapsed! 7 WTC was a nondescript brown square building across Vesey Street from the Twin Towers. It would have seemed to be a fair distance away from them, but given the immensity of each Tower, not far enough. There was also a huge shopping center under the Towers and other, lower, buildings and a hotel I once stayed in, as part of the main complex. ALL of it was destroyed in the 9/11 attack. 

Wow. I had personally witnessed TWO of the three main World Trade Center complex buildings collapse! 

I found out later, 7 WTC had been evacuated. Unfortunately, as we all know, that wasn’t the case for 1 or 2 WTC, the Twin Towers. 

After watching 7 World Trade go down, I began making my way home. I walked through Greenwich Village. There, I came upon an incredible sight that has stayed in my mind along with the collapses as indelible.

The heartbreaking scene outside of Saint Vincent’s Hospital. Doctors, nurses and staff wait for the arrival of victims. Before 6pm, September 11th.

As I came upon Saint Vincent’s Hospital, the closest hospital to the WTC, I saw their side of 7th Avenue lined with green hospital scrubs, with a few white coats mixed in, doctors, nurses and hospital staff, all of who were standing alongside empty, clean gurneys. 

It took me a moment to realize what that meant. And that moment was the moment I lost it. 

NO ONE was coming to be treated. 

EVERYONE was dead. 

2- Union Square

That night, I went to my local watering hole and commiserated with friends and neighbors. As the hours and days passed, you could not go anywhere around here and not see “MISSING” fliers posted on every available space. These were often unlike most of the typical “MISSING” fliers that pop up from time to time. Many of these went beyond the basic stats needed to identify a missing person, into the realm of biography & memorial. A few days after 9/11, I walked with 2 acquaintances heading south. We passed through Union Square. I was stopped dead in my tracks. The central lawn area is rung with a brick wall all around it, and there was a fence inside that protecting the grass. There, on every square inch of this wall and fence were MISSING fliers! In front of them, spontaneous memorials, with thousands of candles burning bright at 3am. I parted from the couple and went home to grab my camera then walked back. I stayed until after 7am. It was just overwhelming to walk among so much loss, to get a tiny sense of who someone was, from a smile, from a few words, from someone else’s pain who was left behind.

Blurry night photo of Union Square, September 19, 2001. The entire Park was blanketed with MISSING fliers, candles and remembrances left by the constant stream of visitors, here ringing the entire lawn to the right and all the way in the back. Never, before or since, have I seen such a huge outpouring of love, loss and incalculable pain.

I found out in the week following 9/11 that two people I knew had been in the Towers that day. Both got out. To this day, I’m not aware of anyone I personally knew who died. Of course, many, many “MISSING” fliers were NYFD, NYPD, PAPD, EMTs, and other first responders. Those that got me hardest were those seeking everyday people. People who either just happened to be there, or who worked there.

MANY of the MISSING fliers were so poignant they stopped me in my tracks, like this one. When they talk about 9/11 heroes, and there are many, people like Mayra Valdes, who served as a Fire Warden for her company on the 103rd floor of the South Tower, deserve to be counted highly among them, “…last seen screaming to her co-workers to get off the floor, to get out…” Ms. Valdes left a 12 year old son. Union Square Subway Station, September 19, 2001.

Imagine just going to work on a Tuesday morning only to be the target, and the victim, of the biggest terrorist attack on US soil since Pearl Harbor, and the biggest targeting civilians? I thought back to the staff members of Windows On The World, who would have had ZERO chance of getting out if they had been there when the 1st plane hit1, and those others I’d seen who worked at the WTC. 

3- Christmas at Ground Zero

Having no family, I’m alone most holidays. It’s never easy when everyone else is with someone. Hell, no one had called me on 9/11 to see if I was ok. Christmas, 2001, was particularly hard because of what had happened that September day and after. Starting to feel depressed Christmas afternoon, I realized I need to stop that in its tracks. I decided to walk down to the World Trade Center site, by then, commonly called Ground Zero. 

I walked down along the West Side Highway, revisiting my youth when I had to park the car there often in gale force winds whipping off the Hudson. This was a particularly cold night. I was frozen to the core, but I was determined to get there and meditate on what had happened and those lost. I walked along the highway and as I approached Vesey Street, I saw some faint lights in the distance. No one was around. My only companion was the wind, the coming dark, and the cold. 

A Christmas Tree installed by construction workers on the West Side Highway at Ground Zero with the Overpass to the World Financial Center behind, the severely damaged World Financial Center to the right. Christmas Day, 2001.

As I approached Vesey Street, I could make out a Christmas Tree with some lights on it. I imagine the construction workers had set it up. No one else was around. Whoever had put it here was off somewhere else with his or her others. It was fitting it was here. Off to my 10 o’clock “the pile” of debris from the collapse sat, the smoldering finally ended, containing the remains of who knows how many in complete stillness in the dark. I stood there letting ALL of this wash over me for a few minutes, staring over at the dark emptiness that had been the World Trade Center complex. I had stood on this very spot before the World Trade Center was built. I was here when they were being built. Now, I am standing here after they were gone, something I never imagined possible. Though there was a lot of damage and destruction to the surrounding buildings, it always felt like if the WTC Towers had ever fallen over entire City blocks would have been taken out by them. But no. It wasn’t like that for the most part. Most of the buildings right around them, including 3 landmarks, were still there. It struck me standing there that what happened was like a giant hand had come down and lifted the Towers clean out the damage from two such immense collapses was so confined. While it was happening, then as I stood there on Christmas, and to this day 20 years later, when I look out of my window, it’s still very hard to believe they’re gone. But it happened, largely right in front of me.

A woman walking around keeping the candles lit. Union Square, September 19, 2001

I said a silent prayer for all of those we lost, and realized that things could ALWAYS be worse. Then, I turned around and walked home.

The view from my window, tonight, September 10, 2021, with the Tribute in Light just behind where the Twin Towers stood. 

This Post is dedicated to all those lost on September 11, 2001, and those who continue to be lost since the attacks due to related illnesses.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Life In The Air Age,” by Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe and recorded on their classic Lps Sunburst Finish, 1976 and Live! In The Air Age, 1977, below-

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  1. It turns out the Restaurant was open at the time, and the staff members and guests who were there all died. ↩

December 8th, 1980-2020

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Tales from Isolation. Day #322

Two Days In My Life

After my early young adulthood as an Art lover, and before I focused on Art, again, I spent about 15 years in Music. Early on, I was on the road with a band, based out of Miami, Florida, for five years. Towards the end of 1980, things were getting really bad in South Florida, inspiring the TV show “Miami Vice,” which after having lived through the reality, I found hysterical. It got so bad, the word was that there so many murders the only cases that were being investigated were when a cop was killed.

My Axe. My blonde 1976 Fender Jazz Bass. The color darkened from 4 years of playing in smoke-filled clubs, rests on my way worn Gig Bag.

Around this time, we took a gig playing a party in Coconut Grove. Not something we ever did- before or after, but it was for a friend of a friend who loved the band, and we liked the idea. “Hey, I’m having a big party and it would be so great if you guys came and played” kind of thing. He made it worth our while to take our gear off the stage of the club we were house band at on Miracle Mile, so what the heck. It was an afternoon outdoor job, and we were up on a hill looking down over the large lawn on a road between us and a row of houses lining the water. Suddenly, a group of police cars descended on the scene across that road. It was a raid. A drug bust. Then the host/our boss for this gig, came over and said “Keep playing.” When trouble starts in a club or a bar, the boss ALWAYS comes over and says “Keep playing,” (like I imagine the boss did on the Titanic) while everyone else is falling all over themselves rushing to get to the exit. “Keep playing.” Like when a riot broke out in a biker bar we were playing in. But that’s a different story.

My blonde 1978 Fender Fretless Precision Bass. I went Fretless after I met the late, great Jaco Pastorius, the genius of the Bass, and a Fretless player, in 1977.

It’s funny how the guys from the union, the AF of M, are never around at those times- only when someone playing was not a member. We looked at each other, the girls dancing in bikinis in front of us, glanced at our cars parked behind us, and then at the unfolding drama going on across the street in front of us. Don Johnson’s got nothing on me. I’m living vice in Miami. 

If gunplay broke out, we might well be in the innocent line of fire, like too many others, before or since. 

Luckily, it proceeded without bullets, a line of cops escorting suspects emerged, and that was the final scene on a long and eventful road trip, full of  unexpected turns, on my journey into full adulthood. Time to go. It so happens that Paul, a friend in another band I had worked with, called to say he was leaving and moving to NYC. He offered to take my stuff with him if I wanted to get out.  

Hmmmm…After some thought, and discussion with my then girlfriend, a local, I decided to take him up on it and move back. Paul and his girlfriend, who went from being a waitress a few years earlier, to being a member of an internationally known band (not her boyfriend’s) a few years later, pulled up with a large trailer hooked to their car and the three of us loaded all of my belongings into it, and off they went. 

A few days later, I got into my Porsche 914 and drove it from Miami to Orlando and we both got on the AutoTrain. I had made the complete 27 hour nonstop Miami to NYC drive too many times to do it once more. The ride was pleasant enough, though I didn’t get much, if any, sleep, and woke early on Monday, December 8th, 1980. After detraining near Washington, DC, I drove the rest of the 5+ hours to NYC, where the rest of my life would begin.

Shortly after I arrived at my parent’s house I heard the news that John Lennon had just been shot and killed in Manhattan, outside his home at The Dakota. 

WHAT??????!

Bob Gruen, John Lennon- Statue of Liberty, 1974, Magnum Photos.

It was just unfathomable. It still is. Even for someone who lived through JFK’s assassination, and saw Oswald get killed, live, on television. Someone who had heard RFK’s assassination live on the radio. Someone who had lived through the assassination of Martin Luther King. Someone who remembers Malcolm X getting murdered. Murder is not something you ever “get used to.” Murder of such great men, each cut down in their prime, is a crime against humanity.

And murder was exactly why I left Miami!

So began the rest of my life…

December 8th, 2020

I took the C train uptown and got off at West 72nd Street to go The Dakota to pay my respects. Arriving, I was greeted on the platform by Yoko Ono’s transformative Sky mosaic mural. The north side of the station, ironically, is directly underneath The Dakota, where Yoko still lives, I believe1.

Yoko Ono, Detail from Sky, Tile mosaic, West 72nd Street B,C Station, underneath The Dakota, December 8, 2020.

After admiring it and its “Imagine Peace” section, and thinking, “Gee, countless millennia of war hasn’t worked out so well, maybe it IS time to give peace a chance…?,” I headed up the stairs and was greeted by a sky that looked remarkably like the mural.

“…above us only sky…” Exiting the 72nd Street Station at Central Park West, with The Dakota looming on the left, December 8, 2020.

I turned the corner onto West 72nd Street and was greeted by no one. The sidewalk was empty. Down the block, in front of The Dakota, where it happened, stood two uniformed building employees, as usual. I stood for a few minutes on the sidewalk, taking in the scene, and thinking about what had happened 40 years ago today.

The Dakota, West 72nd Street, December 8, 2020.

It almost seemed like I was there on the wrong day. Then, I spotted one small bouquet left by a family.

Across Central Park West, looking into Central Park, I could see a long line of visitors waiting to enter the Strawberry Fields section of the Park, but no one else was here, allowing me a private moment in a place where many people live, but which has always reminded me of this day 40 years ago whenever I’ve passed it.

I walked down the street until I came to the spot. I stood there, briefly, alone with the 2 Dakota staff members.

The Dakota, West 72nd Street, December 8, 2020.

In NYC, particularly in Manhattan, everywhere you look and everywhere you walk, you’re walking on history. And the place is not nearly as old as any city in Europe or many other cities elsewhere. Here is one such spot. Passing it now, you’d have absolutely no idea something horrible and world changing happened right here, because it happened 40 years ago. 40 Years. John Lennon was born on October 9, 1940, during the Nazi Blitz of Liverpool. He had just turned 40 when he died. He’s now been dead for almost as long as he was alive.

My thoughts turned to another fact, as what had happened in all that time raced through my mind. Each and every time something’s happened, like 9/11, and all the rest, sooner or later, I wondered- “What would John Lennon say right now?” In addition to everything else he was, Liverpool’s John Lennon was one of our most prominent, and proud, New Yorkers, and a citizen of the world.

Bob Gruen, John Lennon, NYC, 1974. Magnum Photos. NYC in 1974 is light years from the NYC of 2020. It speaks volumes to me that he was so proud to live here then. This t shirt has been on sale here to this day, probably because of this Photo.

On December 8th, 1980, we were all denied knowing

for the rest of time. 

Now, as I sit here after getting back from West 72nd Street, I’m left to wonder- How would the world have been different? 

If you think that’s a questionable question, consider this- There are some who believe that The Beatles played a roll, perhaps the KEY role, in the collapse of the USSR2, in spite of all the countless billions spent to do it by other means, as seen in the PBS Documentary, “How the Beatles Rocked the Kremlin,” from 2009. A grainy video of Part 1, is below (Part 2. Part 3. Part 4. Part 5)-

If that’s not helping “give peace a chance,”  I’m not sure we’ve seen much else that is. It’s something that needs to be more closely studied, I think. If it’s true, then we’ve VASTLY underestimated the achievement of the Beatles, already the most revolutionary cultural force of my lifetime. And, we’ve completely ignored the lesson.

Even still, there are hundreds of millions who would have been very interested in what John Lennon had to say on any topic had he lived. Like there would have been to hear what JFK, RFK, MLK or Malcolm X would have said had they lived. 

If all of them had lived, I think this world would be quite a different place today. Along with John’s loss, today I mourn that. Again. 

Yoko Ono, Another detail from Sky, Mosaic, West 72nd Street B,C Station, underneath The Dakota, December 8, 2020.

December 8th, 1980 was a day my life, and the world, changed. Neither have been the same since. It’s up to those who remember those we’ve lost to keep their memory & their messages alive.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Imagine” by John Lennon.

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  1. I greatly admire Yoko Ono, for many reasons, not the least of which is the supreme grace with which she handled John’s passing publicly. As an Artist, I believe she is still under-appreciated. My pieces on her work to date are here and here. ↩
  2. Here, ↩

The Sound of Silence

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

In 2017, I did a PhotoEssay commemorating the 10th anniversary of my cancer treatment. This year, I’ve decided to do another one, taking a look at this extraordinary April in New York…

There’s “Autumn in New York” and “April in Paris,” but no songwriter has yet written “April in New York.” This April may or may not inspire such a song, but one thing’s for sure- April, 2020 will long be remembered by everyone who’s lived through it- in NYC, and everywhere else.

Here, in one of the current centers of the pandemic, with New York City, alone, accounting for 129,788 cases and 13,240 confirmed or probable deaths from the coronavirus1 as I write this, people have been mostly hunkered down and staying inside. Last week, however, for a reason I can’t quite explain, I felt compelled to walk over to Times Square. I got there after 11pm, normally a time when activity is high in the days before the pandemic. I’m not sure what I was expecting to find. It’s not a place I have any reason or desire to go to. Most New Yorkers I know say pretty much the same thing. When I turned the corner of 8th Avenue onto 42nd Street, a corner once known as “the crossroads of the world,” I was taken by what I saw. Actually, I probably shouldn’t have been- it was pretty much what I’d been seeing on the mile walk there. The streets were deserted. Nothing was open. There were too few cars or trucks to qualify as“traffic” along ever-busy 8th Avenue that I should have been prepared for a similar sight on 42nd Street, but I wasn’t. What I saw was actually hard to believe.

It was completely deserted. The only sign of life was a police car’s revolving lights on top parked out front of the McDonald’s near 7th, which might have been open for takeout. If so, it was the only even partially open business I saw in Times Square. Or, maybe something had happened warranting a police visit. From the other side of the street, I couldn’t tell, and I wasn’t about to get curious. I turned the corner and walked up 7th Avenue to 44th Street, stopped on the corner and looked around. I was completely and utterly alone.

A song started playing softly in my brain…

“Hello darkness, my old friend.
I’ve come to talk with you, again.”*

Alone in Times Square. 7th Avenue at West 44th Street, 11:24pm, April 8, 2020. Click any picture in this Post for full size.

There was another NYPD car across the street with its lights on. I don’t know if anyone was inside it, or not. That was the only sign of “life” I could see anywhere around me. I can’t remember ever seeing it this deserted before. Ever. In my entire lifetime, I’ve never experienced a feeling quite like it.

“In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence”*

I spent some of my formative days on “the deuce” as West 42nd Street was called back when it was as it appears in the film Taxi Driver. It was raw, seedy, nasty and dangerous, but it never closed. Ever. It was, literally, the same 24 hours a day, everyday. Of course, those days are long gone. I’ve never “gotten” what 42nd Street is supposed to be now, beyond a pseudo theme park for tourists. Ditto Times Square around the corner. No wonder New Yorkers never go there. Of course, they go to the shows on the side streets, and there are some good restaurants on those as well, too, but Times Square is one gigantic wasteland as far as I’m concerned. The “redesign” is a disaster. Personally, I can’t imagine why anyone would come to New York City and go to Times Square. Even just to see it.

On this night. No one (else) did.

Harry Belafonte alone in Times Square in The World, The Flesh and The Devil, 1959. In 1981, I would see The Clash perform six times at Bond Casino, seen here when it was Bond Clothing, on the right.

In The World, The Flesh and The Devil, Harry Belafonte plays a miner trapped in a cave-in who resurfaces only to discover mankind has been wiped out in a nuclear holocaust. He sets out to look for other survivors. Bizarrely enough, this film, with the scene above, was on the night after I was in Times Square equally alone. The difference being I KNOW there are millions of other people still here. They are all hunkered down, like I am 23 hours a day, trying to survive the coronavirus pandemic.

I haven’t been able to get the feeling out of my mind since. It’s also stuck with me for other reasons I’m still trying to fully understand.

A few days later, I walked over to Grand Central Terminal, getting there at about the same time I got to Times Square, just before 11:30pm on a weeknight. A time when it’s generally pretty busy. On the way (about a mile), I counted about 10 people- on either side of the street. I entered through the Vanderbilt Avenue corner, not sure it would be open, when I came out of the underpass into the world famous main terminal, the feeling was very much the same as it was in Times Square, with a difference.

Grand Central Terminal, April 14, 2020, 11:34pm.

Standing there, alone again, reminded me that we are all on our own in a crisis. Only those working hard to keep the essentials of life going- doctors, nurses, power station workers, truck drivers, food store employees, essential business employees, pharmacy workers, postal, delivery and transit workers are keeping us from being in a very, very bad situation, particularly for as long as this is likely to wind up being. Standing there at that moment in Grand Central, I was also struck by something else. A train station is a place about travel, about going somewhere or arriving here form somewhere else. That feeling is completely alien to me. I have nowhere else to go. I realized then that the thought of leaving has never entered my mind. But for some reason, standing there, I didn’t feel hopeless, I just felt like I always do, with cancer, Sandy or 9/11- I have to find a way through it by myself.

Cary Grant, left of center, in Grand Central Terminal, in Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, 1959, shows the space as it more normally is during the morning/evening rush.

Last week, a reader asked me if I’d ever been through something like this before. I had to give a qualified “Yes.” The 2012 Hurricane Sandy blackout- when we had none of those things I just listed that we have, thankfully, now, for between 5 and 12 days depending on where you were. No power, no mass transit. Not one thing was open because of a lack of electricity, and at night, the temperature went down to about 32. I spent days hunkered down in my bed fully dressed under every blanket I could muster as everything in my refrigerator and freezer went bad and I had to go about a mile to charge my phone. Of course, MANY other people had things much worse from Hurricane Sandy than I did. Many, many people lost everything. An apartment building 4 blocks from me, that I had been in the day before the hurricane, collapsed. It has still not been rebuilt. The risen tide from the Hudson River came to within one block of my apartment building, flooding many of the ground floor galleries in West Chelsea, while devastating lives all around the area. I was lucky. Still, I learned a lot from going through that, a 2 day blackout in the 90’s and of course, going through 9/11. Then, there was the Chelsea bombing in 2016 that was too close for comfort…

Close to the same scene just shown, minus Cary and everyone else. Grand Central Terminal, April 14, 2020, 11:36pm.

Standing there at that moment in Grand Central, I was also struck by something else. A train station is a place about travel, about going somewhere or arriving here from somewhere else. That feeling is completely alien to me. I never leave NYC. As with the other crisis I’ve lived through here, I, like everyone else, just finds a way. 

When I think about rising above it and transcendental places in NYC, the first place that comes to my mind is, in my opinion, what may well be the greatest feat of building by modern man in the world, Brooklyn Bridge. Before you say, “You’re nuts,” watch Ken Burns’ Documentary film on the making of Brooklyn Bridge, then see what you think. On April 16th, I decided to go there and see how The Bridge was faring during the pandemic.

Just after sunset on Brooklyn Bridge, facing Brooklyn, 7:53pm, April 16, 2020. If I could save one modern structure for eternity it would be Brooklyn Bridge. It is one of the supreme achievements of mankind, both Artistically and as a testament to the human spirit. In this case the spirit of those who designed it and built it while overcoming impossible odds.

I walked the entire span, beginning on the Brooklyn side, and arriving on the Manhattan side just after sunset. It was emptier than I could imagine it during daytime hours. As anyone who has had the joy of walking The Bridge knows, when you reach the center you are, magically, all of a sudden on top. The cabling has ended, the sides and even the railings seem to melt away and you feel like you are standing on top of the world. Now, imagine doing this in 1883 when The Bridge opened. At that point, you REALLY WERE on top of the world! This was decades before the advent of the skyscraper. Standing there, you were higher than anything you could see- anywhere around you. It truly must have felt like going to outer space. Of course, I paused and spent a good 30 minutes pondering everything that had been going on as I stood there, alone.

Alone in the middle of Brooklyn Bridge, with Manhattan to the left, Brooklyn to the right, and the East River straight ahead, 7:11pm, April 16, 2020.

“Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sounds of silence.”*

Thinking about things I’ve lived through in NYC, of course, 9/11 was the first major crisis I would point to. That morning, as I walked to work with one Tower on fire, the second about to be hit, a neighbor standing on the corner told me the first plane had flown down 7th Avenue- it had flown down my block! To this day, no one I know died in the horror that ensued. Both people I knew at the time got out. Still, the mysteries of the brain being what they are, somehow my sleeping mind connected that American Airlines Flight 11 that hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center with the heroic United Flight 93. In my dream (actually, a recurring nightmare), it was the passengers and crew of American Flight 11 that fought back and jumped the hijackers, causing Flight 11 to crash early- into my apartment building. 

18 years later, those thoughts were not in my mind when I decided to visit the Oculus in Santiago Calatrava’s World Trade Center Path Station Terminal at the site of the World Trade Center Towers. What is always on my mind when I visit the site of the World Trade Center is my own past. I grew up in the area. My dad had an office 2 blocks from the WTC for 45 years. I remember walking past the Towers while they were being built. Years later, the company I worked for had two Holiday Parties at Windows On The World Restaurant at the top of the South Tower, a few hundred feet from where the Oculus now is, including one for Holiday, 2000, the last Holiday season that would ever be celebrated there. Walking through the area my thoughts were on change. As in HOW MUCH change has gone on Downtown just in my lifetime

Crossing Church Street, I walked up to the front doors, half expecting to find them locked. The door opened, and there was a man standing along the wall, just inside the door. He was one of about 7 or 8 people I saw while I was inside who just stood in a spot. And stood in that spot throughout. Homeless, I guess. Most had some sort of baggage with them. There were 3 police officers walking around, who checked in on them to make sure they weren’t sleeping, among their other duties. But there was almost no one else there. I moved to the edge overlooking the 57,000 square foot floor. All the surrounding stores were closed. Off in the far distance, at the other end, the PATH train station was still in operation. Once in a while, someone walked from my end across the floor to take a PATH train uptown or to New Jersey. Mostly, I was utterly alone, once more. Again, I stood transfixed by the scene.

The 57,000 square foot main floor of Santiago Calatrava’s Oculus on April 15, 2020 at 11:56pm.

Speaking of change, I wrote about being at the Oculus in August, 2016 as it opened. That day, the floor looked like this-

Standing in the same spot I stood in taking the prior picture, on August 17, 2016 at 3pm.

Here, in this gleaming, barely 4 year old facility, was a shocking look at our present in a nutshell. The brick and mortar economy, represented by the stores that surround both levels of the Oculus, with more elsewhere in the 800,000 square foot complex, has completely paused, save for food stores, pharmacies, and home supply stores. The world has almost completely come to a stop. In fact, I think this period of time when we’ve all been home will be eventually seen as a pause between life as it was and life the way it will be. I think most of us know right now that once activity start up again, things will be different. Many of us have been, at least, subtly changed by this experience. Exactly how things will be different remains to be seen, but they will be different. Beyond the horror of all the illnesses and deaths, we will always look back at this moment “between” the old and the new as “the pause” between them.

Right now, the focus is on finding those infected, treating those ill, and keeping the virus from spreading. Eventually, we all hope, this crisis will mitigate. And then what? A lot of people (even those who haven’t gotten sick) are seriously hurting. Many have lost their jobs- temporarily, or permanently. There’s going to be a gigantic, collective, “starting over” for countless people. The ways people interact or get together and many other aspects of life not known right now will also be different. The way many businesses do business will be changed. A few/some/many small businesses, who knows how many, won’t reopen. More business will be done online.

What does this all mean?

“And the sign said:
The words of the prophets are
Written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence.””

7th Avenue at West 20th Street, April 17, 2020, 8:29pm. On this very corner, Jack Kerouac’s novel On The Road ends. He wrote it 3 blocks west.

We won’t know specifically how life will be different until this is over. And no one knows when that will be right now. In the midst of all this silence, something else that can’t be heard is happening.

Change.

While we are all alone together inside, hopefully staying safe, the world is changing. The only choice we have is to adapt to it.

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “The Sound of Silence” by Paul Simon and performed by Simon & Garfunkel on the album Wednesday Morning, 3AM, 1964, and with overdubs on Sounds of Silence, released in 1966. They perform it on September 19, 1981 in Central Park below. As I write this, almost 53 million people have watched it-

This Post is dedicated to all those keeping us going, particularly in my case, my thanks to the staffs of Trader Joe’s, and Gristede’s, Chelsea, NYC, Rite-Aid, Home Depot, Con Ed, the USPS, to the truck drivers and delivery people who keep this island supplied, and to Drs. Ro & Hoffman.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded and ad-free for over 6 years, during which over 250 full length pieces have been published. If you’ve found it worthwhile, you can donate to keep it going & ad-free below. Thank you!

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
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  1. The current stats are here. ↩

Ai Weiwei & The Value of One Refugee

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava

Ai Weiwei returned to show his latest work in NYC for the first time since getting his passport back, making a splash to rival his last big show here (which he could not attend), the retrospective “Ai Weiwei: According To What?” (at the Brooklyn Museum in 2014), this time with no less than FOUR concurrent shows- one in Soho, two in Chelsea and one Uptown. With so much terrain to traverse, and with so much to see, it makes sense to adapt my approach to writing about them, so I’m going to cover the 4 shows over 2 Posts, as follows-

Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Mary Boone Gallery, Chelsea
Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Mary Boone Gallery, Uptown and
Ai Weiwei: 2016 Roots & Branches @Lisson Gallery, Chelsea in a second Post, here.
Ai Weiwei: Laundromat @Deitch Projects, Soho will be the subject of this one.

Ai Weiwei: Laundromat–

Deitch Projects. Also seen in this site’s Banner.

Of the 4 shows, the centerpiece has to be Laundromat at Deitch Projects, an unprecedented Art show/installation, unlike anything I’ve encountered.

View just inside the front door. Click any image to see the full size photo.


Along with an upcoming documentary film, it’s part of the Artist’s response to the Syrian Refugee Crisis as experienced by the estimated 18,000 (at it’s peak) in the refugee camp at Idomeni, in Northern Greece, on the Macedonian border.



Ai Weiwei said-
“When we started filming in Idomeni, the first thing we noticed was people trying to change their clothes. These are the clothes they wore from Syria, wet and soiled from the difficult journey across the ocean, over mountains and through woods. They had no chance to wash their clothes until they were forced to stop in Idomeni. They would hand wash the clothes and throw it on the border fence to dry. There was nowhere else to hang dry their laundry. We photographed the clothes, but we did not, and could not, imagine they could later be included in an exhibition. The clothes were some of the few possessions they could take when they decided to leave their homes. There is not much else they could take. Off the coast of Lesbos, I found an abandoned boat drifting in the sea. Inside, I found a copy of the Bible and a baby’s bottle. You would also find small objects wash up on the shore. These objects were the most precious things a person could have, the last things they brought with them as they sought a new life.”

Merry Christmas

“Once the refugees were forced to evacuate to different camps from Idomeni, many of those possessions were left behind. Trucks came in and loaded these items up to take towards the landfill. I decided to see if we could buy or collect them so they would not be destroyed. Previously, my studio collected many life jackets from the local officials in Lesbos and made an installation with them at the Berlin Konzerthaus. My team negotiated with local officials who agreed to let us have the collected material. They were aware of our presence and were supportive. With a truckload of those materials, including thousands of blankets, clothes and shoes, all impossibly dirty, we transported them to my studio in Berlin. There, we carefully washed the clothes and shoes, piece by piece. Each article of clothing was washed, dried, ironed, and then recorded. Our work was the same as that of a laundromat.”1

Every item is hand tagged. These read “Baby Rompers.”

While Downtown New Yorkers are no strangers to acts of war and terrorism, catastrophic weather or blackouts2, one of the strange things about living through those events, for me, was that many people in other parts of the City, who were directly unaffected by them, lived in a certain level of oblivion about them. Many seemed completely disconnected from what was going on right in their own City. It can be easy to understand when you look at this, from the Hurricane Sandy blackout, which effected me, and all of downtown New York for 5 days to 2 weeks.  Now? At “Laundromat,” I was the “directly unaffected,” I had never heard of Idomeni, Greece, and knew little about the Syrian Civil War that’s led to 13.6 million refugees3 seeking to rebuild their lives elsewhere. That’s equal to the population of London. During my 5 visits to  it was easy to say now what others may have said about the Sandy Blackout- life gets to be so all-encompassing that few of us really know what’s going on in much of the City, let alone the rest of the world. It’s different when it’s personal.

I’m sure there are those who walked in and thought “This is Art? It looks like the Salvation Army.” I know what they mean. But? Yes, I consider this to be Art, and I consider it to be groundbreaking Art. Laundromat’s range of expression is formidable. Ai Weiwei is the master Artist of the electronic information age. Recently named “The Most Influential Photographer of the Past 10 Years” by complex.com (Cindy Sherman placed 13th, Annie Liebovitz 8th, and Sebastio Salgado didn’t place.? Yet, another reason I don’t believe in qualitatively comparing Artists.). Weiwei’s Blog was, perhaps, the first “essential” Blog of the 2000’s, before it was forcibly removed. Part of it has been translated and published and is still in print.4 Mr. Ai became the first Artist to have photographs “go viral” with his now infamous shot in the elevator with police after his arrest in 2009. Now, he has combined mediums (thousands of photographs, an excerpt from his upcoming documentary film and hundreds of internet articles and social media postings), with actual objects- the clothes and shoes left by the refugees in the camp. The clothes hang on racks. Washed, ironed and/or cleaned, they are “ready-to-wear,” tagged by hand and sorted by type, sex and age, near hundreds of shoes aligned in neat rows on the floor- about an equal number of matching pairs and singles. The shoes are of every kind imaginable, except high heels. (I saw only one pair with a very low heel.) Boots, low boots, sneakers dominate. I assume because their owner’s felt they were finished with crossing wet terrains or bodies of water. Both are present in mute witness to what they have seen and experienced.
What their wearers have experienced can never be washed away that easily. Many are, no doubt, still going through the experience of being a refugee and seeking an answer.

“Time to recharge my batteries” this shirt reads.

A Sea of Words. Hundreds of news and web postings seen in the “Newsfeed” section of the show, which fills the floor beneath visitor’s feet.

Laundromat is a deeply personal show for Ai Weiwei. On a number of levels. First, he seems to just naturally respond to humans in crisis, all over the world, be they individuals in the case of the Feminist Activist Ye Haiyan, as we saw in Brooklyn, in Ye Haiyan’s Belongings,  in 2013 (which recreated that photo verbatim, installing all of her belongings in a gallery in the Brooklyn Museum(!), something of a possibly precursor to this show), or his powerful documentary Stay Home, about the Aids activist  Liu Ximei, or by trying to put names and identity to the countless thousands lost in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, the subject of Backpack pieces Remembering, 2009, installed in Germany, and “Snake Ceiling” (seen in Brooklyn) as well as the monumental work Straight, 2008-12, which consists of 40 tons of rebar from the Sichuan quake that Ai recovered and straightened, It was powerfully displayed alongside the list-turned-wall paper, Names of the Student Earthquake Victims Found by the Citizen’s Investigation, 2008-11, in Brooklyn, photos of which I posted here. The amount of work he, his staff and volunteers put in to try and identify the dead children was nothing less than monumental. Laundromat is only the latest “piece” in Ai’s ongoing “work” regarding human rights. It, too, is monumental, in more ways than one.

I’m left to wonder- If he didn’t do this, who would? Would anyone?

First learning about this refugee crisis in 2015, after being freed from jail, but still unable to leave China, he dispatched two members of his staff to go see the camps and interview refugees. Once he got his passport back, he travelled to Germany, where he could get a much closer look at what was going on. Then he decided to go to Idomeni, and document it. “Laundromat” is the first result of those efforts. The documentary film, Human Flow, is next, scheduled to be released in 2017.

The second level of this being personal for Ai Weiwei is that he, himself, lived in exile for TWENTY YEARS! And? They began when he was an infant, in 1957.

He says-
“When I was born, my father (the great poet and intellectual), Ai Qing, was denounced as a ‘rightist’ and was criticized as an enemy of the party and the people. We were sent to a labour camp in a remote region far away from our home and so began 20 years in hard exile, which saw my father clean bathrooms and the family live in an earthen pit5.” This was after Ai Qing had been a friend of Chairman Mao (Ai Weiwei has spoken about handwritten letters from Mao being in their home), and had served as a representative of the Chinese government. “We carried almost nothing with us to the camp, only trying to survive. It was an extremely difficult time being seen as a foreigner in your own nation, an enemy of your own people, an enemy of those my father loved most. I know what it is like to be viewed as a pariah, as sub-human, as a threat and danger to society.”1. When the exile ended in 1976, and Ai Qing and his family returned to Beijing, many of his father’s readers had assumed he had died. Before he was all that he is today, Ai Weiwei grew up a refugee.
Now, he has turned the latest refugee crisis, coming after what the New York Times called “The Century of Refugees,” into a work of Art, giving voices to all of those who have not been heard. It’s impossible to walk through these clothes and shoes and not feel their presence- that there was a person for every single article here- especially the babies. Though cleaned, evidence of personal wear remains that is permanent, along with what is permanent, though now invisible- the experiences each of these items, and the person wearing them went through. You wonder “Did someone really make this trip wearing thong sandals?” You see many well-known famous brand names, like Adidas, famous images and icons, as well, including “Hello, Kitty,” even “Barbie.”
The clothes look like clothes you could see being sold right down the street, though many of the labels are unfamiliar (a classic way New Yorkers identify tourists), yet so much of what’s here is so common- everywhere in the commercialized world. and not all that different from the jeans t-shirt, sneakers and jacket I’m wearing standing among them. Though, of course, it’s very hard to consider the Idomeni Camp part of the “civilized world,” especially when you read accounts of it, like this one from International Women’s Rights Journalist, Jina Moore.
What are  you going to wear if your house catches fire and burns, or, you have to leave town, or state, or country…in a real emergency, or war?
A story could be told for each item here. Mr. Ai could have made a show with one item, and it would have been quite powerful, but it wouldn’t have been this show. As you walk among the clothes, or around the shoes, look at the thousands of photos on three of the 4 walls, and the hundreds of internet articles and posts on the floor beneath your feet, it is easy to become numb to the numbers, but the little bits of individuality each item retains reminds you of a more finite realm of experience. This is a group made up of people. Of individuals, like you, and me. 1+1+1+…= 18,000.


In the midst of ALL of this, the sea of humanity (not to mention the actual Seas surrounding Greece they crossed), the incredible hardships, suffering and deaths, there was one small part of this story, and this show, I found particularly interesting & revealing, though nothing about it is mentioned in the show itself! I only learned about it through doing my research. Ai Weiwei came across a 24 year old Syrian refugee named Nour Al Khzam, who’s photo I spotted (above) among the thousands on the walls, who is from Deirez Zor, Syria. She was trying to get to Germany to reunite with her husband. Before fleeing Syria she had been studying piano. Ai Weiwei arranged for a piano to be brought to the Idomei Camp so she could play it, as seen in the photos immediately above. I know he’ll be criticized for doing this, but I find it poignent because it speaks to a number of important things, including- going on with your life and realizing your creativity, even after being a refugee (which Ai Weiwei, himself did). It also speaks to something very important- What is the value of one refugee? How many great Artists, maybe an Ai Weiwei, great Scientists, or great people are among these refugees?

This image, above (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images) of Ai Weiwei, right, helping to hold a plastic sheet while Ms. Al Khzam’s plays in the rain that day is of particular importance, as we shall see next time. (Note- This photo was not included in the show.)
Though Idomeni is half a world away, there was a beautiful piece of New York City included in this show. Among the materials handed out at Deitch was a sheet containing September on Jessore Road, by “New York’s Poet,” as Ai Weiwei calls his friend, Allen Ginsberg, written after Ginsberg had visited the Bangladeshi refugee camps in 1971. Allen Ginsberg had come to know Ai Qing during a trip to Beijing. And with it, AWW adds poetry to the list of mediums included in this show.
Having lived through a few events that might have made me a refugee (the Hurricane Sandy blackout left me without means of getting off of Manhattan, except on foot), the inescapable feeling of Laundromat was “There, but by grace, go I.” If anything defines the 20th Century as much as the airplane, space flight, electricity and the atomic bomb, it’s the refugee. More of them were created in one century than at any time in world history.
“I cannot give them food or tea, or money, but rather I can let their voices be heard and recognized. I can give them a platform to be acknowledged, to testify that they are human beings. During the saddest moments in our history, mankind has had to prove their worth as humans to their own kind. Unfortunately, this has proven to be the most difficult task. As an artist, this is something I would like to take on1.”
Ai Weiwei reminds us here that in this new millennium we have yet to find a way to deal with this world wide question.

There- but by grace, go I.

“He wants to see how far an individual’s power can go,” Chen Danquing, a Chinese painter and social critic said in the Nw Yorker’s profile of Ai Weiwei in 20108.  Ai Weiwei doesn’t help all of people directly, as he said, that’s not within his means. Yet he, in the way he lives his life, and in his work, stands for freedom- Artistic freedom and human rights. He, and his work, continually remind us of the primacy of human rights in ways that are unique, powerful and unforgettable. As for an “individual’s power?” The more of his work I see, the more I read his words, and the more I see of his compassion and soul, I’ve come to believe that Ai Weiwei is one of the most important human beings of our time. He has become something of the “conscience” of the Art world. If not the world, itself.

As big a statement as that is, even beyond it, no one can leave this show without remembering that here is a man who has accomplished so very much in the world after he, himself, lived in exile as a refugee in his own country for 20 years (not to mention everything else he has had to overcome). Though he wasn’t able to help them all financially, etc. I think he understated the impact he may have had on them.

Ai Weiwei at the Idomeni Camp.

As much as every item in Laundromat speaks for those with no voice, Ai Weiwei, the man, is living proof a refugee can survive, overcome, and make a lasting mark on the world. I have a feeling his mere presence in Idomeni served to remind at least some of those he encountered of that, and possibly gave them hope. How do you put a value on that? Of course he chose to avoid mention of any such thing when he commented on what he could and couldn’t do for them.

I don’t have to.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “The Unknown,” by Acrassicauda, a heavy-metal band from Baghdad, themselves exiled by the Iraqi War, and the subject of the documentary Heavy Metal in Baghdad. I had the honor to meet and hang out with Tony Aziz, their lead guitarist, in 2011, shortly after the band finally made it to the United States. Talk about overcoming, and continuing to follow your  dream…

(PS- Oh yeah…I still have THREE more Ai Weiwei shows to see…)

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Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited.
To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here.
Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them.
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  1. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  2. Hurricane Sandy caused a partial evacuation ↩
  3. According to the UN., 6.4 million have fled the country. An additional 7.2 million are displaced within Syria. ↩
  4. It may be the most essential book on Ai Weiwei, along with the Taschen monograph, which, though published in April, 2016, is already slightly dated as his career continually evolves. Perhaps the best way to stay current with Ai Weiwei is on his Instagram page. But, be forewarned- he almost never captions his photos there, like he does not for the thousands of them in this show. ↩
  5. Ai Weiwei’s Blog, P.53 ↩
  6. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  7. Deitch Projects Interview, 2016. ↩
  8. May 24, 2010 ↩

Art Is The New Rock n Roll

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Manhattan, 2016. Click to enlarge.

Among the sites not seen above are-

C.B.G.B.
The Bottom Line
The Knitting Factory (Manhattan)
Fat Tuesday
Sweetl Basil
The Angry Squire
Lush LIfe
The Lone Star Cafe
Bonds International Casino
Max’s Kansas City
The Peppermint Lounge
Danceteria
The Gaslight Cafe
The Electric Circus
The Five Spot Cafe
The Half Note Club
The Lion’s Den
Minton’s Playhouse
The Mudd Club
The Cooler
Coney Island High
Great Gildersleeves
The Ritz
Gerde’s Folk City
The Palladium
The Savoy Ballroom
Sin-e
Slug’s
Cafe au Go Go
Smalls Paradise
Tonic
The Village Gate
Wetlands Preserve

and on and on…Going back further-

The Academy of Music
The Fillmore East

Those are just some of the live music venues we’ve lost in Manhattan. Spill a little of your drink on the pavement in their memory. In spite of the title to this Post, I include Live Music Clubs as a whole. The list includes Jazz and Folk Clubs, and clubs that had a variety of types of music, along with Rock Clubs. Some intrepid places have come along in their absence, though I don’t think anyone would say they’ve “replaced” them. There are some legendary places that still remain, including the Village Vanguard, for me, the greatest music club in the world. It’s nothing short of a cultural tragedy that so many clubs have UNWILLINGLY closed, which most of the above have, mostly due to rent increases that they couldn’t afford. When I walk past their former locations, which are “sacred” in their way (and so, some I consciously avoid), and see what’s there now, I continually shake my head and remember-

A little piece of New York City, and what makes this City great, special & unique, went away every single time each one of the Clubs closed.1

City government doesn’t care. They’ve done nothing to stop it. As the clubs have closed, it’s been interesting to me to note that there has been an increase in Art venues, a few Museums, but mostly galleries. Where some of those clubs were “cheap,” they were all at least “affordable,” to the average music lover, and they made going to see and hear music regularly possible. In the mid-1990s, I was going out every night, and hearing a crazily wild range of music, often in the clubs listed above that we’ve now lost. I wrote about many of the shows I saw as part of my Artist Management website. That led to my writing for a national music magazine for 4 years.

As prices, especially real estate, have risen steadily since the mid 1990’s the clubs have faced extremely challenging business environments, with no protection from government2, that has seen their business model largely change from a “club” to more of a “concert/show” environment. Clubs like “City Winery,” founded by Knitting Factory founder Michael Dorf, have become a model for franchises all over the country. Customers can sit, eat and drink, and hear music. I’ve never been to one. It’s not my scene.

Live music in NYC is almost a museum piece “Moon Duo” outdoors, in MoMA’s Sculpture Garden, 2016

And so, this Post is my way of saying I realize that I only wrote about one live music event this year, a damn good one (Jacob Collier opening for Kamasi Washinton), and that I, unfortunately, expect this trend to continue.

As the music clubs closed, in another part of the City, Chelsea, hundreds of Art Galleries were starting up- unprecedented numbers. While most specialized in Contemporary Art, some showed the work of established Artists. Soon, it was possible to wander for endless hours and see as many Art shows as you wanted, or as your feet could take, without spending a dime, (unless you wanted to make a purchase.)

Little by little, completely unintentionally, Art began to usurp Music’s primacy in my life, even though I am someone who was a professional musician who spent 5 years on the road. This has continued to expand to the present minute, where as I sit here on New Year’s Eve, at the end of a terrible year in many ways, I sit back and realize that I’ve gone to see Art every day for the last 6 weeks, except Sunday and Mondays, when the galleries are closed, and the Museums have short hours. I’m now living the life I was living in the mid-1990’s as a live Music fan as an Art lover.

I still listen to, and love, Music. My iPhone is packed with Music to the point I have very little room left for Apps or photos, and it’s constantly being changed and updated. I am always listening to Music when I’m looking at Art. But, I so miss that spontaneous creativity of a a great live Jazz Band, or the energy of a great live Rock Band, even though my years of performing live have taken their toll on my hearing.

For me, anyways, there’s not a heck of a lot of difference between Art & Music, in many ways. If you look through the history of both, there are similar “movements” that happen in both at about the same times. You’ll find Baroque Art & Music, Romantic, Impressionistic periods in both, and 20th Centuries marked by similar explorations. Picasso and Miles Davis have been compared often, not without good reason (and I don’t mean qualitatively compared). A good number of Musicians (including Miles), are/were Artists, though very few Artists were also Musicians (as far as I know). The similarities don’t end there, but that’s the subject of another Post3.

I don’t expect the number of Art Galleries we have in Chelsea to last. When their leases are up, many will close, move, or go online only. A current list can be seen here. Their number is probably already down from the peak number, which was over 300, an astounding number for such a small area of Manhattan, and more than there has ever been in any neighborhood in the world. Back in the day, Soho experienced a “boom” in the number of Art galleries opening. Today, not many remain. It’s hard to know what the future is in Chelsea. Some galleries have moved to the Lower East Side, Brooklyn, even to Midtown (traditionally more expensive). This will, no doubt, continue. Given that I believe the Art Market has, or will very shortly, peak, a downturn in prices may well be followed by a downturn in interest/demand, which would further exacerbate things. Time will tell. The Art market has gone down, a lot, in the past and recovered. Right now, though, many of the people in the Art market today have never experienced a large downturn in prices, so who knows how they will react.

High tide. West 24th Street on Nov 6, 2012, a few days after Hurricane Sandy flooded these Chelsea Galleries. How many will now survive the tide of rising rents?

As 2017 dawns, however, I expect one of the biggest years in memory in the NYC Art World. Blockbuster shows loom in the Museums, and the galleries are going strong. Both auger well for new records being set in Art attendance. I think it’s a good thing. For me? This is the reason I continue to live in Manhattan.

Making the rounds of the galleries and Museums to see Art shows before they end now reminds me of the days when I’d make the rounds of bars and clubs to see bands while they were there. Yes, back in the day there were often so many bands playing at the same time it was hard to juggle, unless they were all playing at the same place, I’d find myself going from CBGB downtown on the Bowery far uptown to the original, classy, Iridium on the same blind date. Now, I find myself going to see a similar range of extremely wide ranging Art on the same day so often I expect it.

Having seen the rise, peak and fall of live Music in NYC, I well know that the Art gallery scene here is likely to follow the same trajectory. The unknown factor is- how much longer will it last? Somewhere, Carly is singing…

“We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway”*

Enjoy it now, while you can, Art lover, because these are “the good old days.”*

*- Soundtrack for this Post is “Anticipation,” by Carly Simon. Published by BMG Rights Management US, LLC.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

  1. Feel free to let me know if I’ve left one out. I know I have. ↩
  2. like our supermarkets don’t receive now ↩
  3. I touched on in in this one. ↩

Leonard Cohen, Chelsea Hotel #November 11, 2016

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava.

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If those paving stones could talk…The scene in front the Hotel Chelsea, currently covered in scaffolding, this afternoon after the passing of Leonard Cohen yesterday.

Here’s an iPhone video I shot outside of 222 West 23rd Street, world famous as the Hotel Chelsea, which Leonard Cohen helped to immortalize in no small way, through his songwriting, and his presence in Suite #424-

Leonard’s “Bird On A Wire” performed live by a couple who were “just passing through,” something that adds even more to it being a fitting tribute to Mr. Cohen, and the spirit of the Hotel Chelsea he helped foster.

Leonard Cohen's wall plaque is now behind the scaffolding, making it very hard to get a shot of.

One for the road. Leonard Cohen’s wall plaque is now behind the scaffolding, making it very hard to get a shot of, though folks were able to leave tributes nearby.

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UPDATE- As seen on Saturday, November 12

UPDATE- As seen on Saturday, November 12

I’ve got a good deal of personal history there, myself, these past 25 years, though none that directly involves Mr. Cohen. The Chelsea is the figurative center of the Chelsea Neighborhood, and was immortalized most recently by Patti Smith in “Just Kids,” which also took place before my time in the area. None the less, I have a ton of respect for all that went on there, and the amazing group of people who occupied the place, including my late friend, Storme, who I recently wrote about. Certainly Mr. Cohen is right up there with any of the others in terms of bringing to the Chelsea the cachet that made the place, the area, and the City a mecca for countless thousands of people- then and now.

Outside Academy Records, one of Manhattan's top Record & CD Stores, tonite.

Outside Academy Records, one of Manhattan’s top remaining Record & CD Stores, tonite.

In the basement of The Strand Bookstore tonite. Yes, the basement where Patti Smith once worked.

In the basement of The Strand Bookstore tonite. Yes, the basement where Patti Smith once worked.

I don’t know what the place is going to become now. I doubt it will retain much of it’s former energy. It’s another sign of the times. An era is slowly ending right before our eyes. Another place that was once a focus point for seemingly boundless creativity, filled with people who inspired each other, the world around them, and beyond, that now must be found somewhere else in town. While there will never be another Leonard Cohen, I look forward to the next generation of Musicians, Writers, Artists and Poets who’ve been inspired by him and all the others.

Hallelujah. There are some big shoes to fill…

More on the legendary Leonard Cohen at the Hotel Chelsea (which sits one block west of the recent bomb blast) can be found here.

R.I.P. Leonard Cohen.

*Soundtrack for this Post is “Chelsea Hotel, #2,” by Leonard Cohen. Thanks to kitty for reconnaissance assistance.

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You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

The Scene of the Crime- Aftermath

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With a suspect in custody, here’s what the site of the explosion looked like this evening.

Seen from the corner of 6th Avenue, as close as anyone was allowed. My crude arrow points to the spot of the blast. As you can see, there are still other dumpsters there.

Seen from the corner of 6th Avenue, as close as anyone was allowed. My crude arrow points to the spot of the blast. As you can see, there are still other dumpsters there.

The former Tekserve, as seen in my previous Post, is the white building on the right. To the left is a church (the second white building), a brownstone and The Associated Blind, under the scaffolding. My crude arrow points to the approximate spot of the blast, which was in or near a dumpster. As you can see, there are still other dumpsters there, which is somewhat surprising. Yes, that’s a street cleaning machine, left with headlight on, but the water on the street is from rain.

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23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenues is still closed. The cleanup is continuing. The police, and the media, were out in full force, with two live broadcasts going on.
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As you can see, it’s a pretty non-descript location for Manhattan, hence my question- Why (there)? As I predicted, I’m not surprised to hear the suspect arrested this morning in New Jersey, surprisingly quickly, is not a New Yorker.

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Subway & Path Train Station entrance to the right. The bomb exploded a few hundred feet down the block.

Subway & Path Train Station entrance to the right. The bomb exploded a few hundred feet down the block.

Interestingly, perhaps meaningfully, there is a PATH train station (an express train connecting NYC & NJ) right on the corner of this block.

Besides the street closing, everything else seemed to be back to normal today.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

They Missed Me.

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

It had been a typical weekend over here at NighthawkNYC.com. Friday night, I went back to see a show that is closing today that I plan on writing about. On the way home, I walked along West 23rd Street, west from 6th Avenue. I passed by what had been the home of Tekserve, our neighborhood Apple place the past 29 years, which has just gone out of business-

Immediately to the let of this shot, taken this week, of the former Tekserve, a bomb blew up last night.

Immediately to the left of this shot of the former Tekserve, a bomb went off at 8:30 last night.

Then, last night I was sitting here writing, when I was stopped by a very loud noise.

“What was THAT?”

I got up and went to the window. During those few steps, I knew something had just happened. I (instinctively) thought back to 9/11. when everything happened in 102 minutes. So, I noted the time- exactly 8:30pm.

This is a busy area. You get used to hearing a wide range of sounds. This one was DEFINITELY something way out of the norm. It sounded like a building had collapsed.

I looked out my south facing window. All I could see were my neighbors who had come out of their apartments pondering the same question looking back at me. I couldn’t see anything else.

“Well, they’ll stone you when you’re trying to be so good
They’ll stone you just like they said they would
They’ll stone you when you’re tryna go home
Then they’ll stone you when you’re there all alone”*

Shortly, there were a lot of sirens going off and that continued, off and on, all night.

Turning on the local news, it seems there was an explosion in or near a dumpster just to the side of Tekserve, between it and the Associated Blind (a home for the visually impaired.) Without being more specific, let’s just say, very close to home. There’s a fortress like Church immediately west of Tekserve, then there’s a small brownstone, and then there’s the Associated Blind, the facade of which has been under construction, and is covered in scaffolding. Right between the Associated Blind and the brownstone is where the blast happened.

Huh?

23rd Street is an historic place. Dylan Thomas, Bob Dylan, Arthur C. Clarke, Tom Waits, and on and on, all lived at the Hotel Chelsea, a half block away, between 7th and 8th Avenues.. Much of Patti Smith’s “Just Kids” takes place there. I’ve lived a LOT of my life on 23rd Street the past 25 years. It has been my extended home base, as those who know me know.

The Hotel Chelsea, this week. So much of my life these 25 years took place on this block, I feel it's part of my home.

1/2 a block west. The Hotel Chelsea, this week. So much of my life these 25 years took place on this block. Bob Dylan wrote Blonde on Blonde here .

About 2 hours after the blast, it was announced that they had located a second device, on West 27th Street, between 6th and 7th Avenues.

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Huh?

What’s there? Not a heck of a lot besides businesses and apartment buildings. The Fashion Institute of Technology (F.I.T.) is across 7th Avenue between 7th and 8th.

At 12:37am the NYPD sent a cell phone blast around asking residents of 27th to stay away from their windows. A few hours later I heard, and saw on social media, that they had used a robot to remove the device. They didn’t officially announce that until 2:35am, prime time for the Nighthawk.

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The mayor announced that there was “no terror connection.”

Huh?

Dude- If it’s determined that this wasn’t a force of nature, or some chemical reaction due to combustibles left at a construction site, and it was, therefore, “intentional,” as you also said…?

WHAT ELSE IS IT?

I’m sorry. Setting off an explosion in a residential district like Chelsea and 29 innocent people were hurt is an act of terrorism.

Period.

I was up late watching what was going on.

I could see that there were teams of folks in matching uniforms scouring the block- from end to end, even way at the other end from where the explosion was. They had light towers at both ends of the block, and this went on til after 6am when I went to bed. This morning, much of my neighborhood remains roped off.

Left-The bomb scene at 530am. Right- West 34th & 7th Avenue. Macy's is across the street to the upper left. Madison Square Garden is right behind to the lower right.

Left-The bomb scene at 530am. Right- West 34th & 7th Avenue. Macy’s is across the street to the upper left. Madison Square Garden is right behind to the lower right.

Somebody else sure thinks this is terrorism.

But? This is not my first rodeo.

I was right here on 9/11. I saw the North Tower on fire at 9:05am from the same window I looked through last night. The first plane, American Airlines Flight 11, flew down my block, which triggered unexpected nightmares for a few months after, where, somehow, my brain combined Flight 11 with Flight 93, and the passengers fought back, and caused Flight 11 to crash early- into my apartment. (Yes, I was very lucky that that’s all that happened. Later, I watched the North Tower collapse from 5th Avenue. Both of the people I knew who worked there at the time got out.) In 2004, there was a 2 day blackout. No big deal. Some years later, a nor’easter left me without water for 4 days. Then, in Halloween week 2012, Hurricane Sandy left me without power for 5 days, and brought the Hudson River within 2 blocks of my door. The subways here have never been right since 9/11.

During the last few of these events, much of the rest of the City was unaffected. I was especially reminded of this during the Sandy blackout. Going north of 30th Street was like going into a different world. There were lights on. Restaurants and delis were open(!) People were using their phones without constantly looking at their power levels. No one carried a candle or a flashlight. Very few of them seemed to know, or care, frankly.

I felt pretty alone.

So? This is part of the price I pay to live here and be able to experience all the great Art and culture NYC has- what makes NYC the greatest City in the world to my myopic eyes.

Still, right now? Now that everyone has been released from the hospital, and no one was killed, thank god, my main thought is-

WHY?

Why did whoever did this pick these two places?

The Associated Blind??? Given the damage from this powerful blast, it’s amazing, and amazingly fortunate, they didn’t have to evacuate it. And, a side street in a pretty quiet area at that time of night???

It seems to me that whoever did this was either paying back something personal, or were sending a message to the effect that “You’re never safe. Anywhere. Anytime.”

“They’ll stone you when you’re at the breakfast table
They’ll stone you when you are young and able
They’ll stone you when you’re tryna make a buck
They’ll stone you and then they’ll say, “Good luck””*

Whoever it is strikes me as being someone who’s not a real New Yorker. First, real New Yorkers respect each other.

Second- Living here, you take your life in your hands when you step outside your door. You could get hit by a car, bus, truck or bike, or whatever, at any moment. Yes, surviving as a pedestrian here, I’ve long believed, is an unacknowledged, and under-appreciated Art form.

So, if you’re trying to scare me, or my fellow New Yorkers?

Get real.

Better yet?

GET A LIFE!

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(For the aftermath, see my follow up Post, here.)

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35” by Bob Dylan, from 23rd Street’s own Blonde on Blonde and published by Dwarf Music.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

If You Ever Missed A Show At Moma? You’ve Just Been Reborn!

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Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

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“If I had my life to live over
I’d do the same things again
I’d still want to roam
Near the place we called home
Where my happiness would never end”*

This, today, from MoMA-

“THE MUSEUM OF MODERN ART LAUNCHES A COMPREHENSIVE ONLINE EXHIBITION HISTORY BEGINNING WITH ITS FOUNDING IN 1929

Installation Photographs, Archival Documents, and Catalogues of Exhibitions Now Available to Students, Researchers, Artists, Curators, and the Public

NEW YORK, September 15, 2016—The Museum of Modern Art announces the release of an extensive digital archive accessible to historians, students, artists, and anyone concerned with modern and contemporary art: a comprehensive account of the Museum’s exhibitions from its founding, in 1929, to today. This new digital archive, which will continue to grow as materials become available, is now accessible on MoMA’s website, at moma.org/history.

Providing an unparalleled history of the Museum’s presentation of modern and contemporary art on a widely available platform, the project features over 3,500 exhibitions, illustrated by primary documents such as installation photographs, press releases, checklists, and catalogues, as well as lists of included artists. By making these unique resources available at no charge, the exhibition history digital archive directly aligns with the Museum’s mission of encouraging an ever-deeper understanding of modern and contemporary art and fostering scholarship.

“The Museum of Modern Art has played a crucial role in the development of an audience for modern and contemporary art for nearly 90 years,” said MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry. “In making these materials freely available, we hope not only to foster and enable scholarship, but also to encourage a wider interest in this important chapter of art history that the Museum represents.”

The exhibition history project was initiated and overseen by Michelle Elligott, Chief of Archives, and Fiona Romeo, Director of Digital Content and Strategy, The Museum of Modern Art. Over the course of the last two-and-a-half years, three MoMA archivists integrated over 22,000 folders of exhibition records dating from 1929 to 1989 from its registrar and curatorial departments, performed preservation measures, vetted the contents, and created detailed descriptions of the records for each exhibition.

The digital archive can be freely searched, or browsed in a more structured way by time period or exhibition type. Each entry includes a list of all known artists featured in the exhibition. Artist pages likewise list all of the exhibitions that have included that artist, along with any of their works in MoMA’s collection online. The index of artists participating in Museum exhibitions now includes more than 20,000 unique names.”

I almost fell over when I saw this. Now? You can revisit every show in the history of MoMA. Unprecedented! I’ve lost my day looking through this site. It’s absolutely unbelievable! Having the chance to FINALLY “see” shows I missed and only heard about, and shows I saw (like the 1980 Picasso Retrospective, possibly the greatest Art show ever), again, is just a dream come true! Here’s a sample, from Moma’s very first show titled “Cezanne, Gaugin, Seurat, Van Gogh,” in 1929!

Mom'a First Show! Installation view of the exhibition Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh, on view November 7, 1929 through December 7, 1929 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. Photographer: Peter Juley

MoMA’s First Show! Installation view of the exhibition Cézanne, Gauguin, Seurat, Van Gogh, on view November 7, 1929 through December 7, 1929 at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Museum of Modern Art Archives, New York. *Photographer: Peter Juley

To this point, Art shows have only lived on, after their closing, through exhibition catalogs and what’s been written or posted about them.

No more!

Here’s a chance to see how the show was hung, what works were grouped together or hung next to each other. Just Wow!

And? You can download catalogs, too!

Now? Of course I’m hoping The Met shocks me with something similar, and every other Museum in the world follows Moma’s groundbreaking example!

Don’t wait. Do not pass “Go.” Go here, now!

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “If I Had My LIfe to Live Over,” by Larry Vincent, Moe Jaffe and Henry H. Tobias, and performed by Doris Day.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here. 

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.

Looking For Bob Dylan On His 75th Birthday

This site is Free & Ad-Free! If you find this piece worthwhile, please donate via PayPal to support it & independent Art writing. You can also support it by buying Art & books! Details at the end. Thank you.

Written & Photographed by Kenn Sava (*- unless otherwise credited)

Bob Dylan’s influence is incalculable. It might be a very long time before it can be fully assessed. Meditating on some aspects of it, as his 75th Birthday, (Tuesday, May 24), was approaching, I settled on one aspect of it-

Bob had a lot to do with taking New York City, and specifically Greenwich Village, where he lived and worked, to another level, after he moved here in 1961.

Yes, The Village had a long history of being a Bohemian haven before Bob, going back to the 19th Century, and more recently, the Beats and the Jazz Clubs certainly had begun to do just that, setting the stage for Bob and creating the environment he wanted to be in. Then, of course, the “English Invasion” piled on soon after. But, that was a long time ago. Many people who live here now, or have lived here over the past 50 years have done so, in part, because of what he did. I decided to “honor” Bob on his 75th, Tuesday, by looking for what remains.

“I wish that for just one time you could stand inside my shoes”*

Ok, Bob. I’m gonna try.

So, I headed down Seventh Avenue on the day, looking for any signs of Bob. What I found, or rather didn’t find, will make this a rather short Post.

My first stop was 161 West 4th Street, just off Sixth Avenue, where Dylan lived with Suze Rotolo, his first NYC apartment after being homeless and couch surfing. I lived a few hundred feet away for a year some years ago. It’s changed a lot since even I lived here. Now, “Tic Tac Toe,” an adult novelty emporium is downstairs, where, back in Bob’s day, a spaghetti shop was, with a used furniture store above.

Looking it over from the outside, it sure doesn’t look like much else about it has changed, except the rent. I’m sure whoever is living in Bob’s former apartment on the top floor in the back now isn’t paying the 60.00 a month Bob & Suze did!

From there, I went looking for some of the old clubs that Bob performed at that launched him, and which became legendary in turn. First, I walked by 116 MacDougal Street where both the “Kettle of Fish” (1st Floor) and “The Gaslight Cafe”(in the basement) were. They are long gone. At 105 MacDougal, where the “Fat Black Pussycat” was, where Dylan is reputed to have written “Blown’ In The Wind,” there now stands a Mexican Restaurant. (I found another place called the “Fat Black Pussycat,” on West 3rd Street, across from the Blue Note Jazz Club.)

Left standing is “Cafe Wha?” on MacDougal and Minetta Lane, where Dylan first set foot on a New York Stage (and where Jimi Hendrix was discovered a few years later) on January 24, 1961, the first day he was in NYC1! Cafe Wha? had only opened in 1959, and its original owner only passed away in 2014. I was there last to hear Dave Fields, and it sure didn’t look to have changed a heck of a lot from what it must have looked like in ’61.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that almost all of Dylan’s all haunts are now gone- It’s, perhaps, more amazing Cafe Wha? is still here, 56 years later! NYC doesn’t give “landmark” status to clubs, so in a City where its quite an accomplishment to last 5 years, 56 is miraculous.

So, heading out of the Village, without having seen nary a Bob Dylan T Shirt, or anyone selling them, I came across this posted on a window-

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It caught my eye because it’s a play on the title of Dylan’s 1965 song “Positively 4th Street,” that was his first single after “Like A Rolling Stone.” It may, or may not have something to do with 4th Street. Positively 8th Street is a festival that celebrates the history of the Village. Bob Dylan is certainly a part of that- I’d say a large part of it. In this case, this year’s festival had already taken place. Fitting.

So, while his influence is incalculable, the visual evidence of his time here has largely disappeared. After three stretches in Greenwich Village, Bob Dylan moved on, which he has continued to do, incessantly, ever since. Yet, it’s one of the places that remains most associated with him. While his influence is not visible to the naked eye, it lives below the surface. It lives on in the impact his music has had on everyone it’s touched. And, all of us who wish him a Happy 75th Birthday. And many more.

*-Soundtrack for this Post is “Positively 4th Street,” by Bob Dylan and published by Bob Dylan Music Co.

NighthawkNYC.com has been entirely self-funded & ad-free for over 8 years, during which 300 full-length pieces have been published! If you’ve found it worthwhile, PLEASE donate to allow me to continue below. Thank you, Kenn.

You can also support it by buying Art, Art & Photography books, and Music from my collection! Art & Books may be found here. Music here and here.

Written & photographed by Kenn Sava for nighthawknyc.com unless otherwise credited. To send comments, thoughts, feedback or propositions click here. Click the white box on the upper right for the archives or to search them. Subscribe to be notified of new Posts below. Your information will be used for no other purpose.