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This New Yorker Filmed 1,900 Hours Of Fantastic Footage In The 1980s
By
Jen Carlson
Published Jan 22, 2015
Modified Jan 22, 2015
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Jan 22, 2015
Modified Jan 22, 2015
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The below videos—featuring a cast ranging from Ru Paul to local bodega guys—were filmed by Nelson Sullivan, who was basically attached to his cumbersome handheld video camera (and later 8mm) during that decade. Just like Warhol, he had his own "factory" at 5 Ninth Avenue (a former carriage house, which you'll see down below), and traveled with his own eclectic crew.
All in all he "shot over 1,900 hours of tape over a period of seven years, capturing himself and his friends in the glossy façade of Manhattan's downtown life... He sought to tape all of New York's citizens, including its outcasts, striving to candidly capture their lives. He taped anything and everything that interested him—outrageous performances in bars and clubs, swinging house parties, chaotic gallery openings, park and street festivals, late-night ruminations of his friends, absurd conversations with taxi drivers, prosaic sunset walks with his dog on the then-still-existing west side piers." Sullivan died of a heart attack in 1989, just as he was preparing to produce his own cable television show.
In 2012, his video archive was donated to New York University's Fales Library & Special Collections. Here is some of what he captured—from small details like the stickers attached to trash cans in the East Village, to a bigger picture of what was going on inside clubs and run down hotels in the Meatpacking District back then.
And finally, this was filmed at The Jane West Hotel, a transient hotel that is now the trendy boutique hotel The Jane
Tagged
1980s
flashback
nelson sullivan
ru paul
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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