"Kill You."

This is the last of my scans of photographs from 1980/1981 from in or around SoHo. I saved this for last because it's different from the rest. There's no nuance and ambiguity, no mixed media and collage. It's just one thing, the bluntest graffiti I've ever seen. Was anyone's life in danger, 35 years ago? Nothing to do about it now. And I did nothing at the time but take a photograph. Perhaps I thought it was ironic. Who would just scrawl "Kill you" (as opposed to "Death to" a specific, named person)? Maybe somebody who just needed to say I hate everyone. I hope they've calmed down by now.

At the Ladyfingers Café...

... you can grasp at any topic you like.

(This is another one of my scans of photographs I took in 1980/81 of the messed-up walls in and around SoHo in NYC. After the last one, I said: "I think I only have one more... and it's pretty different from the others." But I found this one, and the one that's pretty different from the others is yet to come. It's just a 2-word graffiti that I found written on a red door. I've always found it quite striking, even though the 2 words are not nice at all. And the words aren't "Fuck you." "Fuck you" is damned nice by comparison.)

(And, please, if you've got some on-line shopping to do, consider entering Amazon through The Althouse Portal.)

At the Running Legs Café...

You can write about anything you want.

(This is another one of my scans of photographs I took in 1980/81 of the plastered-over walls in or around SoHo in NYC. And, please, if you've got some on-line shopping to do, consider entering Amazon through The Althouse Portal.)

Old pictures: "Casual T-ease."

This is another one of my scans of photographs I took in 1980/81 of the plastered-over walls in or around SoHo in NYC.

Feel free to treat the comments section as a "café" — that is, an open thread.

And, please, if you've got some on-line shopping to do, consider entering Amazon through The Althouse Portal.

Old pictures: 2 faces, one of which might be recognizable.

This is another one of my scans of photographs I took in 1980/81 of the plastered-over walls in or around SoHo in NYC.

Feel free to treat the comments section as a "café" — that is, an open thread.

And, please, if you've got some on-line shopping to do, consider entering Amazon through The Althouse Portal.

Old pictures: Vacant Girls.

This is the third in a series of my photographs of walls from late 1980 or early 1981 — somewhere in the Village/SoHo area of NYC.

Talk about anything you want in the comments (and, if you have to do some on-line shopping, please consider using The Althouse Amazon portal, the link for which is always up there in the blog banner).

Old Pictures: Mudd Clubb/Hurrah.

This is the second in a series of photographs of walls from late 1980 or early 1981, right after I'd bought my first SLR camera and before my first child was born. This was somewhere in the Village/SoHo area of NYC, where I was quite taken with the overlapping and shredded posters and graffiti.

The Mudd Club was around from 1978 to 1983, and Hurrah lasted from 1976 to 1980. There's also CBGB, which began in 1973 and lasted a lot longer.

(Feel free to talk about anything in the comments, including which long-ago rock clubs you frequented.)

Old Pictures: "A New Picture."

In late 1980, I bought my first SLR camera. I was living in Greenwich Village, in my last year of law school, and pregnant. I wanted a camera for all the many baby pictures that would need to be taken, but in the interim, I took photographs of things that interested me, especially the messed up walls in the Village and SoHo. I ran across a bunch of them as I was tidying up my office yesterday, so I'll scan them for a series of posts beginning with this one.

I am disappointed with the way the photo service printed the pictures. I was bitterly disappointed by the way they did not include the entire shot that I had carefully framed. So, for example, I did not cut off the words "A New Picture" at the bottom or fail to include all the edges of the man's hat. I'm still annoyed about that! As if no one cares about the edges and corners of a shot!