Which brings us to this photo that EVG reader Paul Dougherty recently came across. He shared it with us. It's a view looking south toward Ludlow Street and beyond from his East Houston Street apartment in 1986...
"I had lived in that building for six years and had just moved to a bigger apartment in the front with this great view ... Can't really put in words the sense of neighborhood context one gets from this. Maybe 'sleepy backwater'? Pretty sure this would have been before the first youth bar/restaurant the Ludlow Street Cafe — nice place. From this acorn a mighty oak — blah, blah, blah."
We don't have a compatible today photo ... one that would show the ongoing building boom, featuring The Ludlow, Thompson LES, et al. And not much else... Except for Katz's.
8 comments:
I know it's probably not normal to miss a parking lot, but I do. Thanks for the memories, Paul.
Lovely shot. I live for this stuff.
Old-timey. Great shot. On a side note, always nice for me to see older photos with the WTC somewhere off in the distance.
It was heaven.
And far more neighborhood-y and interesting. Before the bland hordes descended like some suburban acolytes of Chinggis Khan.
I know the feeling of how it was such a close knit nabe, you couldnt walk a block without seeing someone you knew, your fave band members, club owners, Stash from Irving plaza. It was golden, love this photo Paul, Katz's had whole roast chickens so cheap we lived on them in hard times.
Thanks for the kind words everyone. It makes me wistful too. Not knowing how much things would change, I wish I did more to document the neighborhood.
Paul
Sometimes I forget how the WTC framed so many views of the city, floating in the distance like the Emerald City. I miss that view, I miss that time when the city had a raw energy that the WTC seemed to reflect back upon us.
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