RIP Leonard Abrams

Photo from March 23 by Stacie Joy 

Leonard Abrams, the editor and publisher of the East Village Eye, the legendary magazine published from 1979 to 1987 that covered the neighborhood's arts, politics and social currents at the time, died suddenly on Sunday, according to several of his longtime friends. 

Abrams, who started the publication at age 24, had recently announced — much to his delight — that the Eye's archives, consisting of documents, manuscripts, artworks, videos, ephemera and a complete run of the original printed publication, had been purchased by the New York Public Library. (This article in The New Yorker has many more details about the archives.) 

On March 23, Abrams presided over a celebration of the acquisition at the Bowery Electric, an evening that included a performance by the Voluptuous Horror of Karen Black. 

His friends shared some thoughts on social media about his death...

My friend & former editor Leonard Abrams passed away suddenly yesterday. We met in 1990 when he was the US editor of Soul Underground. I'm in shock; he and I were just writing one another a few weeks ago and now he's gone. https://t.co/19WRYjCB2d @lithub @villagevoice pic.twitter.com/NY0mfpmqRO

— gonzomike (@gonzomike) April 3, 2023

Could EVEye publisher Leonard Abrams really be dead of a heart attack? He was only last week celebrating the NYPL getting the Eye archives. He was a true Tom Sawyer with that thing, getting us all to work for an apple core - but it wouldn’t have happened without him.

— Walter Robinson (@walter10065) April 3, 2023

Saddened to wake up to the news that #eastvillageeye Publisher, #LeonardAbrams has passed away. As a documentarian, I am so thankful of his rich documentation of the East Village Art Scene through his paper. And, he was such a wonderful, giving person.

— Make Me Famous Movie - ART documentary (@famousartdoc) April 3, 2023

His post-Eye career included opening Hotel Amazon, which brought warehouse-style parties to a former LES school featuring, among many others, De La Soul, Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys. He also made the documentary "Quilombo Countr," narrated by Chuck D, about a community founded by escaped slaves in Brazil. 

However, in recent years, his main ambition was to find a home for the Eye archives.

As he wrote: 

NYPL's acquisition of the East Village Eye archive is the perfect outcome of our years-long search for the best home for these materials. I can't think of another institution with the breadth and depth of interest, the institutional strength and the dedication to the common good that compares to the New York Public Library — not to mention where it lives. New York deserves to keep this essential trove of materials. It covers a time when it wasn't always easy to love New York City, but we always knew how important it was to bring these voices to the public and to preserve them, even if it meant dragging them from one storage space to another for some 35 years.

In a 2012 interview with EVG, he discussed the legacy of the 72 issues of East Village Eye. 

I'm most proud of having gotten so many of them out. And hearing someone say something like "I moved to NY because I read the Eye in my home state." I was gratified to have published columns by David Wojnarowicz and Glenn O'Brien and Cookie Mueller and Richard Hell. And to have been told that the term "hip hop" was first printed in the Eye. And to have presented so many idiosyncratic voices in such a deadpan manner, as if what they said was as obvious as the weather. That was fun.