Category Archives: East Village

AT FIRST SIGHT by Peter Nolan Smith

June 26, 2023 – 7:30 am

1979 was a great year to live in New York. I wrote poems about the Bowery and worked at the city’s #1 punk disco. My girlfriend was a beautiful blonde model from Buffalo. Lisa preferred to hang out at Studio 54 than my club Hurrah, saying, “Being seen there is good for my career.” She […]

By Peter | Also posted in Beauty, Drugs, fashion, NEW YORK, semi-fiction, youth | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

HUNG by Peter Nolan Smith

June 13, 2023 – 9:59 am

The Village in New York had always attracted a kaleidoscope of radical, deviant, and perverse characters considered abhorrent by mainstream America. The Reds of the 40s gave way to the beatniks of the 50s, who in turn evolved into the hippies of the 60s before surrendering the shattered counterculture ghetto to the junkies, artists, punks […]

By Peter | Also posted in 70s, semi-fiction, Sex | Tagged , , , , | Comments (0)

Gem Spa Still Gone

April 18, 2023 – 10:52 am

Back East Village of the 1970s junkie prostitutes worked out of decrepit vans in the Bowery’s parking lots and Johnny Thunder pawned his guitar at the hock shops above St. Mark’s Place. The director of TAXI DRIVER filmed pre-teen Jodie Foster as a prostitute at that SRO hotel on 13th Street. Sighting William Burroughs shuffle […]

By Peter | Also posted in history | Tagged , , | Comments (0)

MEETING ARTHUR by Peter Nolan Smith

April 17, 2023 – 2:36 am

In the summer of 1979 I was going out with a blonde model from Buffalo. One night Lisa came back to my apartment on East 10th Street late. Her hair looked tousled by a hurricane and a button was missing from her shirt. I checked the clock on the wall. It was after 3am. Lisa […]

By Peter | Also posted in Beauty, Love, Nightlife, semi-fiction, youth | Tagged | Comments (0)

Tom Verlaine RIP

January 29, 2023 – 1:23 pm

In the summer of 1978 Television played two shows at the the Bottom Line. MARQUEE MOON had been the best LP of 1977 for us at CBGBs. The first one I missed, because I was working uptown at Hurrah. For the second at the end of July I took off the night and left my […]

By Peter | Also posted in punk | Tagged , , , | Comments (0)