When I was a kid, I spent summers at my Dad’s loft in Soho (NYC).   You didn’t have to have much money to live there at the time; most people snatched up these huge places in the 70’s for the equivalent of a new car.  They were so big in fact, I remember roller-skating at high speeds around the furniture.

It wasn’t a destination neighborhood and other than the art galleries, there weren’t many restaurants or shops.  You could still see someone break into a car in the middle of the day, just like in the movies!

There was the racket-ball court on Spring and Thompson (made famous in the movie Big) I’d hang out there a lot, or spend hours playing Pacman at Ben’s pizzeria across the street, pouring over buttons at the Pop Shop, or longing for transformers at Forbidden Planet.

One particular place that I begged to be taken to every week was the Museum of Holography.  I can’t remember what street it was on anymore, its long gone, but they had great little gadgets to buy.  I was doing a gallery crawl this week and was reminded of how great Holographs are when I caught the James Turrell Show (see photos).

This same week, I also happened upon a shop that opened up in the basement of my old building.  It was an 80’s retro clothing store (photo at side), Keith Haring style graffiti and re-purposed t-shirts.  I hadn’t been in the space for 17 years. 

It used to be a recording studio called Greene Street Recordings where SO many great albums were recorded, Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet, New Order’s Substance, Sonic Youth’s Daydream Nation. But like most NY studios it was dark and sketchy, I interned there as a teenager and encountered cockroaches as big as my fist in the tape locker. I remember being up on a ladder pulling a session for Nick Sansano and when I looked down, the floor seemed to be moving.

I was hopeless as an Engineer’s assistant, but had fun working on sessions (aka getting coffee) and just being around some legends of Rock and Hip Hop; it was an atmosphere that made me think anything was possible.

D

x

 In the spirit of NYC, here is some great forward thinking R&B of the time.

 Nona Hendrix – Transformation

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua1bjD81n5k

I have to include the video to Riot’s song Bloodstreets., they were the house metal band.  They shot this down the block in what was then an empty lot.  I stood transfixed way past my bedtime, eating Chinese food catering and blown away by the awesomeness of pyrotechnics and artifice.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuuPjZ6qz4Q&feature=fvw