5 Ninth Avenue

January 29, 2016 8:41 AM

Keith Haring's New Year's Eve Party with his paintings and favorite music is a video taken at Keith's New Year's Eve Party welcoming 1984 via the 5 Ninth Avenue Project, , which uploads the work of video artist Nelson Sullivan, who, when he died in 1989, left behind almost 1,200 hours of footage of the now iconic and heavily romanticized Downtown New York scene
posted by roomthreeseventeen (4 comments total)

I'm somehow comforted that Keith Haring's 1980s New Year's parties were no more exciting than most other New Year's parties.
posted by Miko at 9:46 AM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]

I only skimmed through a couple of videos (and made a mental note to watch all of them later), but that one of the subway ride to Coney Island reminded me of the stories I was told when I first moved to NYC. One guy told me that he developed an aversion to open footwear because he lived in downtown Manhattan and there were always needles on the streets and park grounds.

I also found myself reacting to the sight of those kids sleeping on the subway seats. The trains looked even less hygienic than they do now but WHY WERE THEY ALLOWING THEIR CHILDREN'S BARE SKIN TO TOUCH THOSE SEATS?!
posted by theappleonatree at 10:17 AM on January 29, 2016

I was transfixed. Wish I could have been there.
posted by radiocontrolled at 2:31 PM on January 29, 2016

first reactions "Oh wow those parties are all alike" and "Oh wow the ticking time bomb of AIDS is about to gut the city"
posted by The Whelk at 3:04 PM on January 29, 2016