THE LAST DYE TRANSFER PRINTER IN CAPTIVITY Sean O'Hagan's Observer (19/11/17) profile of the photographer William Eggleston and, further, recalling reviews of the National Portrait Gallery's recent exibition of Eggleston's work and the various references to his use of the dye transfer color printing process set me wondering: am I the last dye transfer technician in captivity who has never himself been an...
"On a quiet street where old ghosts meet...
In my youth the street-lore of the Lower West Side (not to be confused in this instance with Greenwich Village) related that the last serious Irish/Italian war across Seventh Avenue took place during the summer of 1953. At that time the stretch of Seventh Avenue south from Greenwich Avenue to the Varick Street extension constituted the rough boundary between the...
Little Red in Spaldeen City When I was growing up in the West Village during the late ‘40s and early ’50 there were eleven movie houses within what I considered walking distance of my home on Bethune Street. They were, from south to north, the Waverly; Hudson Playhouse; 8th Street Playhouse; Art; Loew’s Sheridan; Greenwich; 5th Avenue Playhouse; Elgin; RKO 23rd...
Little Red in Spaldeen CityTopping the list of essential items of sporting equipment in use during my West Village childhood were the pale pink hollow rubber balls – about the size and feel of freshly shaven tennis balls – that were known to several generations of New York City kids as spaldeens. Manufactured by the firm of A.G. Spalding &...
Little Red in Spaldeen CityI always hated school. I hated it from the moment my mother first left me, age four, at the Winfield Nursery on Horatio Street to the day in 1959 when I slipped out through one of the Amsterdam Avenue fire doors of the High School of Commerce, never to return. I still can’t say positively whether...