70's + 80's Photographs USA
June 18, 2005 12:25 PM   Subscribe

Some Photographs:
New York club scene in the 70's
Mingle's America in the 80's
NSFW (first link is a biggish load on dialup)
posted by peacay (38 comments total)
 
Amazing images - thanks for this gem.
posted by homodigitalis at 12:37 PM on June 18, 2005


Double that thanks, partly out of nostalgia and also for some historical pics, like the one of Roy Cohn, Halston and Steve Rubell together.
posted by nickyskye at 12:51 PM on June 18, 2005




Here are the 90's.
posted by gleuschk at 12:58 PM on June 18, 2005


For those of us at work, these are NOT SAFE.
posted by faceonmars at 1:01 PM on June 18, 2005


In that 1970s club, what are all those people doing nowadays?
posted by rolypolyman at 1:02 PM on June 18, 2005


From the 70s set, New York may have had the names and the glamor, but the NYC clubs did not hold a monopoly on the indulgences. I lived in the northwest Pennsylvania at the time, and the club scene was just as happening in Buffalo, Erie and Cleveland, as well as many of the smaller towns in between.

The drinking age in New York state and possibly Ohio (that one's blurry) was still 18 and getting a fake ID was fairly simple. Many places were 'open bar' for the price of admission. Cocaine was EVERYWHERE, and really good stuff too. Marijuana was smoked openly in the parking lots, and sex with multiple partners was fairly common over the course of one night, from the back seats of cars, to the privacy alcoves and into the restrooms.

The club scenes I see today in Atlanta and Las Vegas approach what I experienced in the 70s, albeit a bit more discreet and not nearly as widespread, but a few clubs are still willing to let their patrons let go.
posted by mischief at 1:14 PM on June 18, 2005


Another awesome peacay post. The '80s photographs are stunningly good photography. Thanks.
posted by caddis at 1:21 PM on June 18, 2005


The 70's Allan Tannenbaum images are awesome. It is great to see some images that are flat-out pornography (completey NSFW) interspersed with an image of Jackie O out and about. One life, one world.
posted by juggernautco at 1:40 PM on June 18, 2005


and the club scene was just as happening in Buffalo

Wow... I never, ever thought I would read something like that! (I live in Buffalo, never what I thought of as happening)


All I can think of when seeing these is how much AIDS has changed things.
posted by Kellydamnit at 2:20 PM on June 18, 2005


The drinking age in New York state and possibly Ohio (that one's blurry) was still 18 and getting a fake ID was fairly simple. Many places were 'open bar' for the price of admission. Cocaine was EVERYWHERE, and really good stuff too. Marijuana was smoked openly in the parking lots, and sex with multiple partners was fairly common over the course of one night, from the back seats of cars, to the privacy alcoves and into the restrooms.

GOD I wish I were in the 70's. Too many diseases nowadays.
posted by ackeber at 2:22 PM on June 18, 2005


We probably had aids back then and just didn't know it yet, and then there was always herpes, your friend for life.
posted by caddis at 2:27 PM on June 18, 2005


To've been young, rich, and swinging in the NYC 70's...

Gimme the grime and honesty of CBGB over the velvet rope of Studio 54 any day of the week.
posted by jonmc at 2:33 PM on June 18, 2005


The music was better, no doubt.
posted by caddis at 3:21 PM on June 18, 2005


"Bob Mould"
posted by kuujjuarapik at 3:35 PM on June 18, 2005


Man, I can't believe all the photographers in the '70's pictures. A guy couldn't get a public blowjob in a crowded club without the paparazzi....
posted by Eekacat at 3:52 PM on June 18, 2005


This is really, really cool.

But the burning question this leaves me with (oh god, at least I HOPE it's a question that's burning) is: Where are these people now?

I mean, you gotta think, that guy covered from head to toe in gold body paint getting, shall we say, serviced on the dance floor, is probably somebody's father now.

Ick.
posted by StopMakingSense at 4:19 PM on June 18, 2005


I mean, you gotta think, that guy covered from head to toe in gold body paint getting, shall we say, serviced on the dance floor, is probably somebody's father now.

That's assuming an awful lot.
posted by jonmc at 4:47 PM on June 18, 2005


Hell, if he's straight, he's probably somebody's grandfather now...he doesn't look like a teenager in that photo.
posted by alumshubby at 5:17 PM on June 18, 2005


Oh, Canada!
posted by gimonca at 5:44 PM on June 18, 2005


Incredible. Thanks peacay!

The 70's were kind of hot, in a distorted and biologically unsafe way. All I got in the 70s were brown octagon shirts and clogs (thanks Mom :P )

There's also other incredible night life shots. The darkness is still so vivid in my memory.
posted by zerokey at 6:42 PM on June 18, 2005


Check the captions. The guy getting serviced both in and out of gold paint is porn star Marc Stevens, who died of (probably) AIDS in 1989 [NSFW url].

Also note that the Jackie O photograph was at an entirely different party and location (the Met). By then she was a doyenne, and I don't think you'd catch her at the High Society magazine party. Still, you never knew where LeVar Burton would show up.

Related: Rethinking the Dancing Mania. Long classified as mass hysteria, they have much in common with modern concert culture.
posted by dhartung at 8:35 PM on June 18, 2005


Awesome post, peacay - most enjoyable.
posted by madamjujujive at 9:29 PM on June 18, 2005


To've been young, rich, and swinging in the NYC 70's...

Shit, even being young and poor in the '70s was great.

Had a band, played CBGBs, fucked around, times were good.

No one was thinknig of sex as something that might kill you.
posted by Ayn Marx at 9:52 PM on June 18, 2005


Oh my God, I want this and this.
posted by Ethereal Bligh at 10:42 PM on June 18, 2005


Where are they now? To answer from my admittedly limited experience, a lot (tragically, probably not the gay folks) are definitely normal people. My own parents met in the back room of Max's Kansas City; at the time my father was a part-time pot dealer. My mother was in graduate school. Now? Dad's retired from a career as a therapist and mom's a curriculum coordinator in a big public school system.
posted by miss tea at 4:10 AM on June 19, 2005


Incredible breadth and quality. Loved the 80s far better, both photographically and musically. This shot of Rick Ocasic is killer.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 4:15 AM on June 19, 2005


Based on these photos there seems to be a lot less nudity in the 90s.

Which is pretty much exactly how I remember it.
posted by Rawhide at 8:16 AM on June 19, 2005


Based on these photos there seems to be a lot less nudity in the 90s.

The 90's were a neccessary reaction against the glamazon celebrity culture that Studio 54 epitomized. It was a different world. It wasn't glamour and excess, it was a world of lowered expectations. So less nudity would kind of come with the territory.

Plus for a fleeting moment in the 90's I was fashion forward.

*sniff*
posted by jonmc at 8:20 AM on June 19, 2005


jonmc writes "it was a world of lowered expectations"
Well I think that's really the epithet of that decade and is a perfect emblem for that world of disco. It was like us and them. Rock v Bee Gees &c. There was a lot of great music produced definitely, but jesus h kryste in a pickup truck there was some disgusting pap, often dominating mainstream world. It was like a conspiracy of mediocre. I was growing up and precociously finding my way into the world of music - thank fuck for my older brothers who instilled some (yes, what I believe to be) taste to wash out that odious taste of Abba and all the freakin' other talentless gold chain wearing, moustachioed discoball bobbing floor light flashing puke.
posted by peacay at 8:59 AM on June 19, 2005


jonmc writes "it was a world of lowered expectations"

I was saying that the 90's were a world of lowered expectations, not the 70's, but hey run with it. And I kinda like ABBA.
posted by jonmc at 9:12 AM on June 19, 2005


Just coughin' up my 70's furball.
posted by peacay at 9:36 AM on June 19, 2005


You can find this tradition continue at Burning Man. The NY scene was the baby boomer "dirty thirties", GenXers do it in the desert.
posted by stbalbach at 10:50 AM on June 19, 2005


really amazing-thanks!
posted by tarantula at 1:18 PM on June 19, 2005


Here is today's version.
posted by mayfly wake at 5:00 PM on June 19, 2005


nice one. thanks peacay
posted by Outlawyr at 6:05 PM on June 19, 2005


Mayfly gets the prize.
posted by stbalbach at 9:45 PM on June 19, 2005


This one labeled mudd club rock suicide janis really caught my eye. Is that an overdosed Janis Joplin on the bed? Because wikipedia says "Joplin died of an overdose of unusually pure heroin on October 4, 1970 in a Los Angeles, California motel room", not in a club. Just curious.
posted by sophist at 1:22 AM on June 20, 2005


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