For a change of pace, Clayton Patterson, the veteran Lower East Side documentarian, has been assembling slideshows using photos from his massive archive.
“We are working out a new idea,” he wrote under the initial YouTube video. “Making slideshows. This is the first experiment with an old friend.”
Over the years, Patterson has documented it all, and this first online installment, not surprisingly, is the definition of wide ranging.
The cascade of images stretches from the 1980s into the 2000s. Included here are mass evictions of squatters on E. 13th St., police arrests, Tent City in Tompkins Square Park, Patterson’s custom Clayton Caps, empty heroin baggies stamped with rival brand names that he collected from the streets, former Houston St. antiques dealer Billy Leroy sporting a black eye, Dana Beal advocating for pot legalization on City Hall’s steps, the late restaurateur Lucien Bahaj, activist John Penley and the former Tompkins Square band shell.
There are lots and lots of locals — including graffiti artist LA II twice — posing for pictures in front of Patterson’s famed Front Door, Jim “Mosaic Man” Power and his canine pal Jesse Jane, street artist Richard “Shadow Man” Hambleton, tattooing, actor Matt Dillon rocking a Clayton Cap, the Keith Haring graffiti wall at Houston St. that was recreated by LA II, Boris Lurie of NO!art fame, actor Taylor Mead and writer Robert Heide.
There are also photos of CBGB, Pyramid Club drag queens, filmmaker Nick Zedd, Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, former Mayor Ed Koch at a rooftop screening at Seward Park High School of the Patterson biopic “Captured,” Living Theater actor Steven Ben Israel, users smoking crack and injecting heroin, and Linda Twigg, who peddled homemade clay poker chips and pot.
Garden of Eden creator Adam Purple, filmmaker Spike Lee and Anthology Film Archives founder Jonas Mekas, along with actor Rockets Red Glare and a satanic, black-hooded tarot card reader who haunted St. Mark’s Place are also part of the mix.
Memories!..
Joe Coleman , , Whitney Ward , Jim Jarmushe , Anton Newcombe, Richard Hambelton ,Kembra Pfhaler Taylor Mead,Nick Zedd, Matt Dillon, 3rd Street,
Jeremiah Newton , Sylvia Miles , Amos Poe ,Tom Jarmusch, Jim ,Jarmusch, Sara Driver,
LA2, Chris Parker, Johanna Spoerri, Spider Stacey, Hugh Pool , Brian “Criff Dogs”,
Lorraine Leckie , Jonathan Shaw, Patrick McMullan, Gerard McNamee Jr., Tom Ballinger, Steve Ballinger.Rat Face, Suger Bear.
Well it is true I have photographed most of the people you mention. There are a few I do not know. But I only counted 12 you named that are right. If you look there are members of Lorraine’s band you could add.
#Lucien
Clayton the Mayor of the lower east side was always my hero and then I actually met him at the Pink Pony when I was doing my show The Countess and The Cunt Rock Revolution and was honored to have my photo taken and now we are doing a collaboration ..He’s the coolest most deeply stylish soulful intelligent modest and utterly AMAZING original man..and I love everything he stands for as an artist. He’s the real fucking deal. An icon of the last of the wildlife in the golden age of stupid. Watch it now, we are practically extinct before they erase the nuance and context.
I want another Acker Award dadblammit!
OK, Sur got first. The first person who mentions 20 names of people not mentioned in the article or in SUR’s list will get a “Captured” DVD and their photo taken in front of the Front Door and published in The Village Sun.
Clayton
The first person to make a list of 25 people they can name will get a signed “Captured” DVD. And will have their picture taken in front of the Front Door. Classic LES history.
List the 25 people in the comment section of The Village Sun.
Clayton
Ed Koch – Clayton Paterson – David Dinkins – Richard Hambelton – Vince Aletti – Bob Heidi – John Gilman – Ellen Stuart – Kembra Pfhaler – Rene Ricard – Gary Indiana – Taylor Mead – Tabboo – John Sex – Mr. Fashion – Wendy Wilde – John Kelly – John Heys – Stephen Lack – Nick Zedd – Michael Wilson – Jeremiah Newton – Spike Lee – Jonas Mekes – Sylvia Miles – Brian Butterick – would make it 26? Does that disqualify me?