Out and About in the East Village

In this weekly feature, East Village-based photographer James Maher provides us with a quick snapshot of someone who lives and/or works in the East Village.



By James Maher

Name: Tim Floyd Young
Occupation: Retired Housing Assistant and CitySites Tour Guide
Location: Avenue A between 3rd and 4th.
Date: Monday, June 9 at 1:30 pm.

I’m originally from Indiana, from a small little farm town of 300 people. My brother came here, and after college, I came to live with him in the summer of 1968 when it was Hippie Dippy time. After San Francisco, this was the second place to be, and I enjoyed it.

I moved directly to the neighborhood. I was here in 1968 right on St. Mark's Place and 2nd Avenue. The neighborhood was great. I was into music. I don’t know if you heard the old Tom Paxton song, the old folk singer. He had a song called "Talking Vietnam Blues" and supposedly the soldier meets up with the Viet Cong and they sit down and he says, "Oh, it smells like Midnight on St. Mark's." Electric Circus was going on, as was the Fillmore East. We’d go out and people would just line St. Mark's Place. The whole block was filled between 2nd and 3rd. All these kids would just be hanging out.

The Fillmore East… I was thinking about it earlier, the things that have gone. It was great. The building is still there. It was a big old, ruddy Yiddish movie theatre. It had a double balcony. It probably filled up to 1,500. Some of my favorite shows were seeing the Incredible String Band, they put on a great show, and I think I saw the Kinks there once. One of my big memories, I didn’t go to the show, but the Jefferson Airplane were playing four or five shows and somebody build a big model Jefferson Airplane. It was in front of the Fillmore East. So after one of their shows all the fans came out and started carrying it up to 2nd Avenue and St. Mark's Place.

I’m retired now but I worked for the Housing Authority for almost 20 years. I was what was called a Housing Assistant, checking people’s income once a year, figuring out what the rent would be and taking repair complaints. You went around and left notes on people’s door, asking them when they were going to pay their rent. Oh, and I was also a CitySites Tour Guide — on the bus!

1968 and 1969 was OK, but by 1970 and 1971 the neighborhood just went down. A lot of people got into drugs and speed and heroin started picking up, and then there was the Back to Earth movement, so a lot of people went out to plant things and be farmers and stuff.

I moved over to Avenue A and St. Mark's place by then. Generally I didn’t go past Avenue B. It was a little rough. My rent-stabilized apartment and a girlfriend kept me here through the 1970s. I remember one night, I went to what used to be St. Marks Cinema on the corner of St. Mark's and 2nd Avenue to see "Night of the Living Dead" and, you know, got out at about 2 in the morning and there were very few people walking down St. Mark's Place. Everyone’s looking like a ghoul. Then I get over to Avenue A and off in the distance, somewhere on 12th or 11th Street between Avenue B and C, there was just a massive fire. A building was getting burned down. A lot of those buildings got burned down.

I eventually joined The 6th & B Garden Community Garden. I’m still a member of that but I’m not as active as I used to be. In the late 1970s there was a federal program to take over abandoned lots. They gave one to the city called Operation GreenThumb. Unfortunately at first, they were under HPD so there was always the threat they were going to take over the garden spots and give them to developers.

So we always had a protection committee. People would go to the Community Board meetings. Our garden always had entertainment, with a little stage, and each month we’d have a number of events. That has continued.

In the 1980s it sort of came back. I remember Wigstock. I remember the riot in Tompkins Square Park. There was a big homeless encampment there, and supposedly there was a tent for prostitutes. The thing was, I felt when the homeless encampment was there… I felt safer in the Park than I had previously. But at the same time I really think the city could have given them some space, because at that time they had all these bare, empty lots.

About a month ago, [a young woman] got mugged on 6th Street or 7th Street and she said, 'Oh, this has always been a safe neighborhood!' Us old timers just started chuckling.

James Maher is a fine art and studio photographer based in the East Village. Find his website here.