………………..A friend of Jac and mine, Able Rapp, just sent me this pic from years ago. In case you don’t recognize her…that’s Janice Dickinson when she was absolutely beautiful…..always a wild child, but when you looked like her in this business…how could you help it……I think this was at Studio 54, but I really don’t remember much about those days. Once I was with Jac those days were all but over. We did go there once in a while just to see friends, but we rather stay home!
Janice Dickinson graced the cover of the first “Cosmopolitan” magazine I ever read (June 1981).
Wouldn’t it be fun to go back to the 70’s for a bit? …..Maybe.
Great photo-thanks for sharing!
Jac changed your life! And you changed hers, as well. It was meant to be. And it will always be that way into eternity.
I tried to get into Studio 54 way back went (worked & lived in NYC) but no go. I finally got into the building a few years ago when we saw a Cabaret revival with Alan Cummmings as the MC. Gorgeous Art Deco interior lobby.
I tried to get in Studio 54 way back when too…..LOL but it wasn’t until my friend got us tickets to see Cabaret with Alan Cummings that I was able to get in. I could still feel the energy that was once lived there when I walked in.
I had my 30th birthday party in the infamous basement of Studio 54! Then we all went up stairs to dance. It was a great night!The sun was up when we all went home!!
I’ll have what she’s having….
Oh, Goldie! Does that bring back memories, Maxwell Plum! It was owned by Warner LeRoy who opened Tavern on The Green in Central Park after Maxwell Plum’s closed. There were so many single bars on First venue during that time. There was a beautiful restaurant called Sign of the Dove. Very upscale, fabulous bar, food out of this world and the most magnificent flower arrangements in the whole wide world. There was another hidden hideaway for New Yorker’s called Cafe Nicholson. A hidden gem on 58 Street by the upper level to the 59 Street Bridge. All mexican til at a time when it wasn’t popular, a parrot named Lolita who would great you at the door and hated all females except me. It was a prefixed dinner, appetizer, entree (only a choice of three), the most delicious chocolate souffle in the whole wide world and the wine just flowed. Portions were small, I, usually had to take my husband someplace to get a hamburger because he was hungry but with all that wine you were crocked. Johnny Nicholson was a true New York character. Friends with Tennessee Williams, Truman Capote, Lillian Hellman, Peter, Paul & Mary etc. You never knew who you would be having dinner with! You and Louis have given me a wonderful trip down memory lane! Thank you!
I wonder if the flower arrangements were done by the very talented sister of a college friend.
She lived on Sutton Place not too long after moving to NYC at a very tender age. Went into the flower business and enjoyed great success.
This summer I went back to the Chelsea neighborhood for the first time since I lived there in 1970 (23rd Street). The only thing I recognized was the 23rd Street subway stop that I entered each day to go to work on Hammarskjold Plaza and my apartment building. All else was new. There was even a Gristedes there now but it looked old, as though it was built several decades ago.
The Hotel Chelsea had started a remodeling project only a few days before I arrived to see it. Fabulous, all the luminaries who called that place home.
I missed the little deli that sat on the corner; now there is a TD Bank in that spot plus some other property I do not recall.
Goldie, my husband lived on 23 Street in the late ’50’s and 60’s with a bath tub in the kitchen! The deli that was nearby was called Joe Huggs. Everything they had was delicious. There was an Italian Restaurant nearby called the Savoia. I was never in The Chelsea but Charles James who my husband worked for during the 1950’s spent his last years there. They have been doing renovations on it for years, have no idea when or even if it will reopen. Oh if those walls could talk! I can’t remember the name of the florist that did the flowers at Sign of the Dove, I think they were on Madison Avenue. New York changes constantly, the New York you knew is long gone like my New York. It’s still an exciting city, just different. They are closing Lord and Taylor and Henri Bendel’s. The last of the carriage trade stores. I’m sure Louis has many, many stories to tell of his and Jac’s New York!
Somersault, I once read something about NYC that you hit upon. You live there, you have your favorite restaurants and bookstores, boutiques, etc., and then, in a few decades, they are there no more. Another business replaces them and your memories vanish, in s sense (not that you really forget them). It seems each new generation creates a new New York City. When I see the famous brownstones, I often think of the hopes and dreams that lived within their walls. When I lived in the city, I was haunted by the older women who had obviously been beauties in their time and perhaps had small parts on Broadway. They would enter an eatery, typically overdressed and over made up, but they knew they were once “somebody.” I always wondered about their lives, too.
My experience with Studio 54 was strictly from the outside looking in. You know, reading in the gossip columns about who was there whooping it up. I recall Halston, Bianca Jagger, Liza Minnelli were often there dancing the night away. To think that you, too, were there. Wild and crazy times, but as Somersault pointed out, a very sober ending to it all. Steve Rubell had a blast while owning it, I am certain. Dickinson was a beauty in her time.
In the interest of social history, I just want to add that when I lived in NYC in 1970, THE place to go was a bar called Maxwell’s Plum. Not that I ever went there. Honest. But one of my work colleagues went, and aged boxer Jake LaMotta tried to pick her up. I believe he was a good 30 years older than she was. For me, I recall seeing one of my childhood marquee heroes, Gordon McCrae, having a boozy lunch at a place on 1st Avenue, where I went for lunch. That broke my heart. Cultural revolutions sure shook up the world.
Louis, just read an interesting article about Janice a few weeks ago–I think in the NYTimes. She found a long lost 1/2 sister (from her father) that she never new existed and she and her other sisters reunited with her. She usually has such bad press so it was a nice change for her.
Janice has always been given a bad rap, and fought for her place in a very blond world. She’s loud, but actually very sweet. She hasn’t had an easy time of it. Beauty can be a wonderful thing to have, but you have to be a very strong person, because when it goes I’ve seen it destroy some girls.
Janice isn’t the only knockout in this picture! Studio 54, those days, long gone. When I think back to those years, they were sad, now. AIDS had taken so many of my friends, became rampant like a fire. So many tears, so much heartbreak, so many lost at a young age. New York was a party town during that time, the wilder the better. Ah what youth didn’t know. I worked in the creative field, so it hit hard. It was fun for awhile. Your picture brought back many memories, some good, some funny, some sad. Thanks for making me remember.
Dear Somersault, I know only too well the devastion had on my industry. A generation was gone in a flash. Jac and I were going to memorial services it seems weekly. It was and still is very hard. We lost many of our very best friends.
Louis,
Janice looked great but you didn’t look too shabby yourself! Jac had great taste.
Donna from California
thank you Donna