A 'Perfect Day' in New York with Lou Reed
New York was his city . Lou Reed was born in a Brooklyn hospital in 1942. And yesterday, October 27, he died on Long Island. New York was his city. And he showed it to us. From Harlem ('I 'm Waiting for The Man') to the Lincoln Tunnel ('Dirty Blvd.') through Union Square ('Run, Run, Run') and all the venues where he played, first with The Velvet Underground and then alone. Until that New York that Andy Warhol had shown him, disappeared. Lou Reed was one of the last characters they created, lived and knew that New York glam, pre-punk, Of which there is nothing left but his songs, with which we now go out to tour New York again.
We started at 106 West 3rd Street in Greenwich Village, there was the Cafe Bizarre . Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Maureen Tucker started playing there regularly in 1965: The Velvet Underground. There, Andy Warhol discovered them and, as Reed himself always acknowledged, it made them who they were. Without Warhol, his mentor, the Velvet Underground would have been "inconceivable," he told Rolling Stone. In this cafe, now a deli, they sang 'The Black Angel's Death Song' despite the owner forbidding it.
After that first challenge, Warhol 'rescued' them and invited them to enter his SilverFactory (which at that time was still at 237 E 47th Street, today a parking lot) and created with them the Exploding Plastic Inevitable , a multimedia show (featuring music by the Velvet Underground, dancing by Warhol's superstars and videos by Warhol) that kicked off at the Hotel Delmonico (502 Park Avenue; today a Trump building, sic) on January 13, 1966 at a psychiatric association dinner, to which Reed returned with his music the electroshock therapy that his parents made him undergo when he was young.
in that show, Up-Tight , one of the most famous superstars of Warhol's Factory, Nico, sang with the Velvet Underground and, together, they performed for two years for venues in the East Village, such as The Dom (23, St. Mark's Place, "where admission was $2, $2.5 on weekends," says Rolling Stone on its Foursquare) or The Gymnasium, both of course disappeared.
In April 1966, in the mythical and dilapidated scepter studios (at 254 West 54th Street, the same building that later housed New York's most legendary club, Studio 54 ; now converted into a theater) The Velvet Underground recorded their first album, _ The Velvet Underground & Nico _, one of the most influential in music history, with one of the most recognizable covers and, also, Lou Reed's first portrait of that New York of junkies who go up to Harlem to look for "his man of him" ('I 'm Waiting for The Man') or walk through Union Square without knowing what they were going to find (Run, Run, Run).
I'm Waiting for The Man
I'm waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington, 125
Feeling sick and dirty, more dead than alive
I'm waiting for my man
Hey, white boy, what you doin' uptown?
Some of those songs, like 'All Tomorrow's Parties', had been previously recorded in the loft studio John Cale and Lou Reed shared at the 56 Ludlow Street, on the Lower East Side.
The famous Chelsea Hotel (222 W 23rd Street, today in the hands of a real estate tycoon that we will see what he ends up doing), of course, it was also one of the most important places of the time. There between the bohemian underground and creative from New York , many of Andy Warhol's superstars lived there, that's why he shot in it _Chelsea Girls_ (1966) with music by the Velvet Underground.
In 1967, without Warhol as manager and without Nico, the Velvet Underground returned to the Scerpet Studios to record ** White Light/White Heat ** and began their regular shows in one of the key concert halls for glam rock and later punk, Max's Kansas City (at 213 Park Avenue South, today a sad CVS Pharmacy). There, on August 23, 1970, one of Warhol's stars, Brigid Polk, recorded what became Lou Reed's last performance with the Velvet Underground and that later would be the album Live at Max's Kansas City, with wonders like this, ' sweet jane'.
After parting ways with the Velvet Underground, Lou Reed turned to Long Island d to work with his father for a few months, save money and go to London, where he started his solo career, but still remembering New York. **'Walk of The Wild Side',** from his second solo album ( transformer ) and first great success, was dedicated to part of those Chelsea Girls or Warhol's clique.
Back in New York in the 1970s, he continued to play in clubs that have since disappeared, such as the Electric Circus (19-25 St. Mark’s Place, today a Japanese restaurant) or the Bottom Line (15 W 4th Street; where he recorded the Live: Take No Prisoners in 1978) ; one of the most resistant since they opened in 1974 and until 2004, the year they closed, despite the support of famous musicians (such as Springsteen) and neighbors. They could not take care of the debts and today it is one of the buildings of the New York University.
NYU also got the Palladium (East 14th Street between Irving Place and 3rd Avenue), concert hall and nightclub that began as the New York Academy of Music and where Lou Reed recorded the live album Rock'n Roll Animal , on December 21, 1973.
Lou Reed dedicated an entire album to his city . To the streets that always inspired him. And he called it after her, New York (1989). In which he described the disappearance of the city he had known at the hands of the Trumps, Giuliani ('Sick of You'), of AIDS ('Halloween Parade'), of great social differences ('Dirty Blvd.') . A decadent New York, but in which he still found one of his best albums.
I'll take Manhattan in a garbage bag
with Latin written on it that says
"it's hard to give a shit these days"
Manhattan's sinking like a rock
into the filthy Hudson what a shock
they wrote a book about it
they said it was like ancient Rome
'Romeo and Juliet'
Following his "intuition", as he said, Lou Reed also photographed his city and published those photos in Lou Reed's New York. And, in the end, although there was nothing left of his New York anymore, in recent years he was still able to find something that inspired and relaxed him: hudson river ('Hudson River Wind Meditations', 2007).
But of all the poems that Lou Reed sang to New York, if you have to choose the closest or most personal perhaps it would be 'Coney Island Baby' (1975), the story of his life from school on Long Island until he arrived in Manhattan: “Ahhh, but remember that the city is a funny place / Something like a circus or a sewer”. [By the way, Coney Island chose him and his wife, Laurie Anderson, king and queen of the mermaid pageant].
So far our walk for a Sunday morning, through what was the wild side of New York. Just a perfect day! We are happy to have spent it with you. And if you can still do it.
Take a walk on the wild side, Lou