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Tour the bohemian Lower East Side of 1995 for alternative fashion, underground art and punk opera!


 
These videos, from documentarian Corey Shaff, are a record of a New York long since passed, despite being only 20 years old. Yes, the rapid gentrification of the Lower East side has rendered the areas you see here nearly unrecognizable, but before you bemoan the lost “real” NYC, it’s worth remembering that the changing landscape of New York is its most consistent feature—you’ll notice some of the subjects in these shorts talking about how different the neighborhood is from the one they remember. Of course the most recent changes in New York has left it all but unlivable for the working people and artists it once boasted, though somehow they keep coming, and finding a way to stay.

Shaff covers some fascinating ground in these three little shorts. There’s a five-minute tour of Ludlow Street, where little theaters and punk bridal shops and millineries exist alongside older businesses, like a pillow shop where the owner still uses techniques from the old country. It’s a cool look at at artistically thriving area with old and new artisans—there’s even a shot of The Mercury Lounge with its original signage at the end. The longer second film centers on 2B, a gritty art space that operate for nine years before being replaced by a corporate drug store. My favorite film is the third one, a look at the Amato Opera House on the Bowery. The tiny little venue had world class artists crammed onto a tiny stage, spitting distance from the audience, for a truly intimate yet grand experience. Shaff’s wife Stefanie Lindahl says the documentary was a little too gritty for some viewers:

I remember how Corey wanted to juxtapose the Bowery ‘bums’ with the goings on within the opera house, but PBS nixed the idea as ‘too scary,’ so he had to cut out the footage.

It’s a weirdly selective documentary that covers the Bowery in ‘95 yet leaves out the bums, but this is the sentiment and aversion that has shaped the New York of today—one that prefers Applebee’s to artists.

Watch ‘em after the jump…

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Posted by Amber Frost
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08.11.2016
11:02 am
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Powerful video of Hurricane Sandy hitting downtown New York

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Artist Matthew Kraus shot this footage of Hurricane Sandy raging through New York City’s Lower East Side on October 29 and 30th.

You get a real sense of just how powerful the storm was and how much it impacted on the LES in this video. Intense.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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11.05.2012
02:49 pm
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‘11th & B’: Film footage of the Lower East Side in the early 1980s
10.19.2011
03:56 pm
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Photo credit: 1980 © Brian Rose/Ed Fausty
 
French film maker Marie Martine directed this short documentary that captures the spirit and flavor of New York’s Lower East Side before the yuppie invasion. Made in 1983, the film features music by Alan Vega, Martin Rev, The False Prophets and scenes of artist Scott Borofsky creating street art.

In the seventies hundreds of buildings were abandoned, buildings with no heat, no hot water, no locks. The landlords had wrung all the money they could get out of them….Today [1984] whole blocks between Avenues A and D are lined with the carcasses of buildings. Vast stretches of land are covered with crumbled bricks and cement. Until recently, lines of drug buyers snaked around the blocks….When Father Moloney found a dead body near the Christadora Building last year, the police acted almost unconcerned. ‘We are in a no man’s land,’ he was told. ‘They can dump anything they want here.” New York magazine - May 28, 1984.

I love the fleeting glimpses of downtown faces.
 

Posted by Marc Campbell
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10.19.2011
03:56 pm
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