Desperately Seeking the Lost East Village

‘The East Village Then and Now: Capturing the Changing Streets’By Daniel RootAbbeville Press, 240 pagesHow has the East Village changed over the last forty years? In his latest photography book, veteran East Village resident shooter Daniel Root snapped pictures from the 1980s and the present day, placing them side by side. Titled “The East Village Then and Now: Capturing Changing Streets,” the book chronicles the transitions that have occurred in one of New York’s most creative, vibrant, and volatile neighborhoods.For those who care to remember, the Village was a war zone in 1986. Severely hit by the economic crash out of the ’70s, it was a crime-ridden, drug plagued area so dangerous, landlords would rather torch their buildings and collect fire insurance than risk redevelopment. In his evocative introduction to the book, artist Peter McGough recalls a mnemonic from the era: “Avenue A was ‘A-Okay’, relatively safe; Avenue B was Beware; Avenue C ‘see you later,’ implying you might not make it back; and Avenue D was simply ‘Do not enter.’”Given the rock bottom rents, it was also a hotbed of raw creativity. The East Village was a kitchen sink SoHo, Greenwich Village’s surlier twin, a squatter’s paradise where scrappy punks and eccentrics could form art collectives, put on plays and concerts, and create with abandon without fear of eviction. Drug dealers in plywood shacks hawked their wares like fishmongers, but poets, painters, and musicians crowded into the crumbling buildings. This was when Mr. Root, fresh faced and wide eyed, began to snap the fascinating chaos. A publisher friend suggested a documentary book soon after and he began photographing in earnest. Alas the project never came to fruition and instead Daniel Root went on to become a celebrity and documentary photographer of note.The Life Café, the setting for ‘Rent,’ East Village. Daniel RootThis current book resurrects the original idea, pairing Root’s original images with contemporary ones in a juxtaposition spanning nearly half a century. They reveal drastic changes, and also eerily timeless consistencies. Some corners are unrecognizable, while others are, aside from a change in business or ownership, strikingly unchanged. Tompkins Square Park is no longer a haven for crackheads and scheming anarchists, and the hollowed buildings that once dotted the streets like broken teeth have been bridged over with handsome condos. Nevertheless old storefronts and landmarks remain preserved, after a fashion, and surly punks still occupy the stoop outside “Search and Destroy” on St. Mark’s Place. The book begins with the mural of John “Gringo” Spacely, a local character who brooded from No. 3 St. Mark’s Place with his eye patch, pompadour and dangling cigarette for twenty years. Root also captured Madonna filming Susan Seidelman’s “Desperately Seeking Susan,” sashaying down St. Mark’s in the style she cribbed from drag performers at the Pyramid Club. Both shots attest to how the neighborhood has been in the constant process of crafting its own mythology, serving as a launchpad for, if not stardom, at least notoriety. Daniel Root touches on many of these hallowed spots of 70’s and 80’s cultural history, where hipster tourists still show up to pay belated homage like pilgrims to a shrine. He snapped the Life Café, the DIY community hub of vibrant Bohemianism at the corner of 10th street and Avenue B, and which eventually served as the inspiration for the musical “Rent.” He also photographed the original CBGB’s, the venue that gave us the Dead Boys, Television, Blondie, Iggy Pop, and Talking Heads, among many others, which is now a John Varvatos clothing boutique. Then there is his shot of the original 222 Bowery, once an old YMCA, where sinister satirist and Beat hero William S. Burroughs lived with pioneering poet and artist John Giorno.La Plaza Cultural Garden, Present Day, East Village. Daniel Root.“The East Village Then and Now: Capturing the Changing Streets” also chronicles the beginnings of the neighborhood’s vaunted green spaces, planted in abandoned lots full of rubble. A testament to a community movement of incredible resourcefulness and resilience, nearly fifty such gardens now exist in the area, making the East Village one of the greenest city neighborhoods in America. Mr. Root captures an early food garden by pioneering urban horticulturist Adam Purple, dubbed The Garden of Eden, which is now a building development. But the East 12th street community garden persists, which Mr. Root snaps at its scrappy beginning, and now in its present-day lushness.Mr. Root’s early photographs also capture the neighborhood’s devastation. He walked through and documented buildings that had been completely gutted and left to the elements, including 633 and 635 East 11th Street. From those abandoned structures, he photographed the East Village skyline. He also captures the decaying bandshell at Corlears Hook Park, near Grand Street and the FDR Drive. The amphitheater was where Joseph Papp staged some of his early free Shakespeare in the Park productions. The bandshell was demolished in 2021 as part of the East Side Coastal Resiliency project.Adam Purple’s Garden of Eden. Daniel Root.The last four decades are, of course, only a small window of a 260-year stretch of history. The East Village began as a farm owned by Peter Stuyvesant, who planted a pear tree still commemorated by a plaque at 13th Street and Third Avenue. It then became a global shipbuilding powerhouse producing ironclads for the Civil war and clipper ships for trade. Then it was a nexus for Irish and German trades, such as butchery, bakery and fine cigars before becoming the center of the Jewish Garment district and Jewish theatrical culture. The Irish left McSorley’s Alehouse, the Germans left the Ottendorfer library, and the Jews left the Second Avenue Yiddish Art Theatre which is now the Village East by Angelika. These iterations, recounted in a closing essay by Bill Morgan, Allen Ginsberg’s archivist, shows the inexorable long-term nature of urban change.Even so, Mr. Root’s comparative catalog of the last four decades underscores how vital they have been. He portrays an East Village still deeply involved with its recent cultural legacy, even as it becomes a tonier version of its scruffier self. The book thus serves as a nostalgic look backward and a present-day guide, a view of the past through the lens of the present. It is also a testament to the Village’s enduring and multifaceted legacy. The rents may be steeper, but these iconic images are proof that the East Village’s scrappy Bohemian spirit battles on.

Desperately Seeking the Lost East Village

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