Seven Autobiographical Accounts of Arriving in New York Andy Warhol Jonas Mekas Joan Didion Bob Dylan John Cale Patti Smith Chantal Akerman Seven Autobiographical Accounts of Arriving in New York Andy Warhol Jonas Mekas Joan Didion Bob Dylan John Cale Patti Smith Chantal Akerman In Order of Arrival to New York: In Order of Arrival to New York: Andy Warhol 1949 p.6 Jonas Mekas 1949 p.22 John Cale 1961 p.39 Joan Didion 1956 p.39 Chantal Akerman 1972 p.116 Bob Dylan 1961 p.83 Patti Smith 1967 p.99 Text from: Text from: Warhol’s The Philosophy of Andy Warhol Didion’s “Goodbye to All That” (From A to B and Back Again) Dylan’s Bob Dylan Chronicles II Cale’s What’s Welsh for Zen: Smith’s Just Kids The Autobiography of John Cale Film Stills from: Film Stills from: Mekas’s Letter to Penny Arcade (2001), A Walk Mekas’s George’s Dumpling Party June 29, (1990), I Leave Chelsea Hotel (1967), Patti 1971,Velvet Underground’s First Appearance Smith at Anthology Film Archives (1964) Febr. 19, 1998 Akerman’s La Chambre, Hotel Monterey, News from Home Andy Warhol Jonas Mekas I had a job one summer in a department store look- ing through Vogues and Harper’s Bazaars and Euro- pean fashion magazines for a wonderful man named Mr. Vollmer. I got something like fifty cents an hour and my job was to look for “ideas.” I don’t remem- [Pours himself a drink] ber ever finding one or getting one. Mr. Vollmer was an idol to me because he came from New York and Dear Penny Arcade, I drink to you. Now when we that seemed so exciting. I wasn’t really thinking about talked, now that was already months ago. Oh how ever going there myself, though. time goes. You asked me why I like New York. 1949 Andy Warhol Jonas Mekas 1949 But when I was eighteen a friend stuffed me in- [Laughs] to a Kroger’s shopping bag and took me to New York. I still wanted to be close with people. I kept This evening somehow I remembered that question living with roommates thinking we could become and I felt like I did not exactly do justice to your ques- good friends and share problems, but I’d always find tion. You see, new york is my home. My new home. out that they were just interested in another person Not America. No not America. When I came in late sharing the rent. At one point I lived with seventeen 49 I mean everything was new and strange. But I lived different people in a basement apartment on 103rd here now for 50 years. Every street, I walk the streets Street and Manhattan Avenue, and not one person and I see there is a house here and its no longer there. out of the seventeen ever shared a real problem with me. They were all creative kids, too-it was more or I grew up with the downtown streets. I was so lone- less an Art Commune so I know they must have had ly when I came. And those streets those houses those lots of problems, but I never heard about any of them. people that walked around me and I did not know There were fights in the kitchen a lot over who had who were they were. They became part of me. They bought which slice of salami, but that was about it. were like memories. I created a whole set of new I worked very long hours in those days, so I guess I memories. When I walk now I see all the places I wouldn’t have had time to listen to any of their prob- recognize I remember I was there. I worked there. lems even if they had told me any, but I still felt left Allen lived there. I mean every every, where is the out and hurt. house where Robert frank, when I met Robert Frank I’d be making the rounds looking for jobs all day, first, no it is no longer there. But I walked the streets and then be home drawing them at night. That was where roberts house was. I see it there, I see it right my life in the 50s: greeting cards and watercolors and there. I don’t see the new building there, I see Rob- now and then a coffeehouse poetry reading. ert’s house. It’s part of me. Part of my New York. Part The things I remember most about those days, aside of my New York memories. And the summers. The from the long hours I spent working, are the cock- winters the summers. The summers that no people roaches. Every apartment I ever stayed in was load- run away from in New York. NO! I like when New ed with them. I’ll never forget the humiliation of York is hot! Like today it was thundering and it was bringing my portfolio up to Carmel Snow’s office raining and I was sweating and its humid but I LIKE Andy Warhol 7 8 Jonas Mekas at Harper’s Bazaar and unzipping it only to have a it. I LIKE IT WHEN ITS HOT. I LIKE THE SUM- roach crawl out and down the leg of the table. She MERS OF NEW YORK I LIKE THE WINTERS felt so sorry for me that she gave me a job. OF NEW YORK I like the autumns of New York. So I had an incredible number of roommates. To The spring usually comes almost unnoticed. Even this day almost every night I go out in New York I though its winter. And suddenly its summer, like to- run into somebody I used to room with who invari- day! So I drink to new york. I drink to New York. ably explains to my date, “I used to live with Andy.” My friends. I always turn white-I mean whiter. After the same scene happens a few times, my date can’t figure out [Takes a sip] how I could have lived with so many people, espe- cially since they only know me as the loner I am to- [CUT] day. Now, people who imagine me as the 60s media partygoer who traditionally arrived at parties with a Aw my New York. So, dear Penny, good you are re- minimum six-person “retinue” may wonder how I cording this for those who do not know what New dare to call myself a “loner,” so let me explain how I York, how great New York is. To you. really mean that and why it’s true. At the times in my life when I was feeling the most gregarious and look- [Takes a sip of his drink] ing for bosom friendships, I couldn’t find any takers, so that exactly when I was alone was when I felt the AH! ITS HOT! I feel great. most like not being alone. The moment I decided I’d rather be alone and not have anyone telling me their Yeah Penny. I would almost credit New York for sav- problems, everybody I’d never even seen before in ing my sanity when I came here from the post war my life started running after me to tell me things I’d Europe. When I was full of doubts about everything just decided I didn’t think it was a good idea to hear this civilization, oh the affairs of this world the coun- about. As soon as I became a loner in my own mind, tries that were selling countries like thieves sell horses that’s when I got what you might call a “following.” for pennies. This city saved my sanity. I threw myself As soon as you stop wanting something you get it. into it completely. I am wasted. And the city embraced I’ve found that to be absolutely axiomatic. me. The first years when I came here I did not miss a Andy Warhol 9 10 Jonas Mekas Because I felt I was picking up the problems of single theatre performance a single film that opened friends, I went to a psychiatrist in Greenwich Village a single ballet performance. The music. I was hun- and told him all about myself. I told him my life sto- gry thirsty for art. I was like the sponge so dry. That ry and how I didn’t have any problems of my own is ready to absorb anything. I was the garbage can. I and how I was picking up my friends’ problems, and was the dry empty sponge I took everything and ev- he said he would call me to make another appoint- erything became part of me. ment so we could talk some more, and then he nev- er called me. As I’m thinking about it now, I realize New York. Seasons of the year. The dust of the streets. it was unprofessional of him to say he was going to The people. The buildings. The cars the NOISE! I call and then not call. On the way back from the psy- like the noise of New York. I even like the noise of chiatrist’s I stopped in Macy’s and out of the blue I New York. bought my first television set, an RCA 19-inch black and white. I brought it home to the apartment where The subways. The rattling of the subways when I I was living alone, under the El on East 75th Street, lived in williamsburgh, the elevated trains.