Where 1980s cool kids got their hair cut

Second Avenue’s Industrial Hair specialized in “ultrashort, severe, androgynous styles” reported an August 1984 New York magazine piece on where to shop in the East Village.

“Local residents consider Industrial Hair one of the best of these salons,” the writer states in an item about creative and avant-garde hair cutting spots.

“It’s high-tech, with rubber-tile floors and Pirelli garbage cans. A whip (for clients who fidget?) hangs ominously from an iron bar near the ceiling.”

This Industrial Hair ad comes from the October 1983 East Village Eye.

1980s East Village cafes still packing crowds

Restaurants have always had a short shelf life in New York.

But even in today’s frat bar-happy, quasi-Bridge and Tunnel East Village, some old-school eateries are still drawing crowds.

From the January 1986 issue of local arts newspaper the East Village Eye comes this ad for Life Cafe—once a refuge for the bloody and battered who were caught up in the Tompkins Square Park riots of the late 1980s.

I never knew Yaffa Cafe had a slogan. But here it is in their ad from the same newspaper.

Vintage clothes for cool early-1980s kids

I’d never heard of East Side Story, but judging by this ad in a 1983 issue of the East Village Eye, it must have been stocked with sweet vintage finds.

Muscle sweat T-shirts and cotton zipper jackets I remember. But Bundeswehr shirts?

Today, 227 East 59th Street is occupied by a cabinet store. A quick search for East Side Story turned up no trace of the store or when it folded.

What pizza place is Lou Reed posing beside?

The August 1984 edition of monthly downtown arts newspaper the East Village Eye featured a cover story on Lou Reed timed to the release of his New Sensations LP.

The article includes this photo of a cool-looking Reed taken in front of an anonymous pizza shop somewhere in New York City, with a great chalkboard menu beside him (“veal and peppers parm $4.75”). 

A very close look reveals a phone number under “Free Delivery.” And that number turns out to still belong to . . . Big Nick’s Burger and Pizza Joint at Broadway and 77th Street.

The bad old days of Tompkins Square Park

In December 1986, the city unveiled plans for a massive renovation of Tompkins Square Park—new landscaping, new playgrounds, no more bandshell. The goal was to create more open space and make it a lot less sketchy.

Well, those plans didn’t go over well with community leaders, reported an article in that month’s East Village Eye. 

“Open space would break up the traditional uses for the park. As it is, all the people in the community have a little part they feel comfortable in,” one local told the paper.

“There’s the Ukrainian old men’s area, and the bandshell, used mostly by younger people. There are four different playground areas, divided more or less by age group. And there’s the part where older black men play cards. Tompkins Square is like a mirror held up to our community.”

Eventually the park did get its renovation in 1991-1992. But not without a fight, namely the riots in the late ’80s sparked by cops trying to clear encampments of homeless people—like “Dog Man” above.

Wigstock: New York’s other Labor Day tradition

The first Labor Day parade was held in September 1882; thousands of workers marched and rallied in Union Square for better workplace conditions and pay.

A century later, the first Wigstock was held in September 1985. One thousand spectators came to Tompkins Square Park to see founder Lady Bunny and other drag queens perform in sequins, sky-high platforms, and big wigs at the park’s bandshell.

Wigstock’s genesis was a little less serious than Labor Day’s: It was conceived by Lady Bunny and friends after a drunken night in 1984 at Avenue A’s Pyramid Club.

An instant, outrageous hit, Wigstock became a Labor Day tradition. By 1990, the crowd swelled to 10,000. If you were stuck in the city that weekend with no friends inviting you out to the Hamptons or upstate, you could always head downtown and get a kick out of the crowds and performers spilling over into the streets.

When the park closed for renovations in 1991, Wigstock moved to Union Square, and in 1994, it relocated to the Christopher Street Piers. 

Until 2001, that is, when the last Wigstock took place. In subsequent years it was absorbed into the Howl! festival in the East Village. But it seems that 2009 will be Wigstock-less. 

Here’s more Wigstock info and ephemera.

Wanted: struggling female for mistress position

Once upon a time, before there was Craigslist, a “financially independent” male looking for a slender mistress had to resort to placing a personal ad in alternative newspapers like the Village Voice or the East Village Eye. 

Any woman interested in the offer would actually write a letter to a PO Box and wait for a phone call. Very archaic.

 This ad ran in the August 1984 edition of the Eye. Hmm, how many responses do you think he got, and did he find the mistress he was searching for?

Midnight theater at the Laight-Again Club

From the July 1982 issue of the East Village Eye. Did the Laight-Again club once have some association with Laight Street? 

102 First Avenue was also the Old Homestead Bar for a while. It’s now an Irish pub called Lilly Coogan’s.