Out and About in the East Village

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



By James Maher

Name: Margie Segal
Occupation: Teacher, Retired
Location: 4th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue
Date: Monday, Nov. 6

I’m a retired New York City school teacher. I came to college here from New Jersey many, many years ago. I came in the late 1960s. I was in NYU. That wasn’t this neighborhood then, now it is.

As a college kid it was fabulous — fun things happening all around, but the city itself was in pretty bad shape. It was crime ridden over here. But when you’re that age it doesn’t seem to bother you. There were neighborhoods you just didn’t want to go into and this was one of them. I stayed out of Tompkins Square Park. I didn’t really have any trouble, but as a woman I was on guard a lot, especially going near the park, the subways — just being out at night alone was not something you wanted to do, not that I didn’t do it.

My best and favorite memories are going to the Fillmore East every weekend and seeing all those bands — the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers, Jefferson Airplane. That was always a fun time. It was a lot of fun staying up and listening to music all night long. It was very cheap. The club scene wasn’t for me. We were just more out and about ... being out and being with friends. Basically it was just being out of the streets.

This neighborhood to me represents everything that New York was and should be. The diversity, and a place for people of all incomes and all walks of life. I hate to see that disappear. I do see that it’s changing. My friends and neighbors are affected by it and that bothers me. I like to live by all kinds of people.

Back then there was just a feeling of freedom and possibility. That’s what this was all about. Maybe if you talk to 18 year olds now they might feel the same way I felt then. You know, it was a horrible world. The Vietnam War was going on, we were protesting, but there was always a feeling of hope that we were going to change things and it would be a better place. We always just felt very free. We had nothing, like Janis Joplin said, ‘Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.’ We had nothing to lose, so we felt free.

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