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What’s in a name?

This week I begin teaching two summer courses, both of which are outgrowths of the Writing New York course I team-teach each year with Cyrus. The first is an undergraduate seminar called “Writing New York: The Downtown Scene, 1960-1980.” I pioneered it...

Downtown sounds: Mink DeVille and Suicide

The Marquee Moon project I’ve been working on in earnest for the last several months has given me occasion to read an enormous amount of music journalism from the scene at large and also the excuse to spend countless hours on YouTube looking for stray footage...

TriBeCa 1980

Watching Wild Combination last week, I had my curiosity piqued by references to a club called Tier 3. I’d heard the name before, but never really paid too much attention — it seemed third tier to more famous (and more fully chronicled) places like Mudd...