“I moved to the Upper West Side in August, 1978, and immediately loved it with all my heart,” writes Stephen Harmon, a retired lawyer who first lived on New York City’s West End Avenue and 73rd street. “I am a photographer and set out to preserve it on film because I knew the look of the people and streetscape would change over time forever.”

Stephen’s love of photography began when in the 1960s he saw Walker Evan’s 1931 photograph of Saratoga Springs’ Main Street and said to himself, “Nothing will ever look like this again and thank God that guy took that photo and I’m going to be that guy who takes those photos.”

After this album of photos, we hear from Stephen in a great video from 2018.

Off-Track Betting was on 72nd St, just off Broadway. Upstairs was Off-Price Clothing. In the 1980s, you could eat at Mrs. J’s Sacred Cow (established 1947) and Cherry restaurant, and grab some cheese blintzes at the Royale Bakery on 72nd Street…

Stephen Harmon took hundreds of pictures of the Upper West Side in the 70s and 80s and thankfully he still has many of them. We’ll be posing more of his fantastic archive here.

His work is displayed in many of the city’s museums, including The Museum of the City of New York, The Brooklyn Museum, The New-York Historical Society, and The New York Public Library.

“When I was photographing the streets, the people, and the businesses in those bygone days, I was trying to capture on film and preserve forever, I hoped, the look, the feel, the very essence of the time and place. Nostalgia was not foremost on my mind; I was photographing the current day. Today, it seems the results are triggering happy memories and people are enjoying them, and I am very glad.”

– Stephen Harmon, via West Side Rag

“Before the advent of OTB, betting on a horserace was illegal, except for bets placed at the racetrack. Not everyone could get to a racetrack, so every neighborhood had a bookie, or several, who worked the illegal operation usually from a legal neighborhood business, such as a candy store, or a grocery, or a diner. Sometimes they used violence to collect on a wager.

“TB was started for two primary laudable purposes. First, to provide a government-authorized venue for placing non-racetrack bets on horse races, and, second, to raise revenue for NYS, which took a percentage of the wagering. Why OTB failed in NYC is too complicated for me to discuss… By the early to mid 1980s, OTB parlors were considered by many to be unsightly and unpleasant (many did not have toilets in order to dissuade customers from staying at the OTB for hours), and the clientele was considered by non-bettors to be unattractive, lazy or just unsavory. I, however, did not see it that way.”

– Stephen Harmon

“The streets of the Upper West Side that I walked in the late 1970s and 80s were a delight to behold, awash with color and character attributable in great measure to the people who lived by them.

There were shopkeepers who sold flowers and fruit in front of their stores. There were shoeshine men who set up buckets of flowers on the sidewalk. There were jewelry and hat sellers hawking their wares in different places and ways. There were hot dog carts, ice cream sellers, and other food vendors. And there were the sounds of the buskers, singing and playing instruments, all on the street. What a wonderful time to live!”

– Stephen Harmon, via Upper West Side Rag

Stephen Harmon: An Appreciation

The post Disappearing NYC: 1980s Store Fronts on New York’s Upper West Side appeared first on Flashbak.

It’s only been 10 days since perhaps the last presidential election of my life. Kidding! Oof, it’s been a rough one. Lots of people are still reeling from last week’s news while the drum of daily bad news begins to spin up again. Like the last time that guy won, I’m seeing an increase in calls for self-care: “Take care of yourself.” “Be sure to rest.” “Take the time you need.” Permission to care for one’s self is once again blanketing social media, newsletters, and podcasts.

What comes to mind when those calls reach you? What do people usually do for self-care? Here I’ll acknowledge that society often links the concept of “self-care” to femininity. Disengagement, sinking into a video game or opting out of hard conversations, are more often masculine coping strategies. These, plus other methods like finding endless distractions, can all cause harm in their own ways. It’s a problem that we all should explore, no matter our gender. I’ve tried to include masculine or gender-neutral examples of self-care in my examples.

I’m no stranger to a piping hot bubble bath, reality TV, or even sighing about the world with a friend at happy hour. Those activities can be lovely and very much needed in the days and years ahead. But how much care are we showing ourselves when we do them? How effective can self-care be, especially against the global crises we face? I believe the push for self-care helps drive us further away from the solutions we need. Here’s why.

self care bad

It’s the capitalism. Self-care is expensive! Of course I enjoy every time I buy myself a little treat. But travel, fancy electronics, and clothes hauls all cost money. Most of those are cheap enough that we can get them fairly often. But they may rely on the exploitation of others to produce. Self-care  products also bring companies more than a TRILLION dollars. I wrote “millions” there before I looked it up; wow!

Kelly Main writes, “The self-care industry has sold us the idea that self-care is anything that brings us joy. And if it makes us happy, then it’s worth whatever price we pay for it–whether with our time or money. It’s cunning marketing the self-care industry uses to drive millions to spend.” Many of these companies reinvest our dollars into politicians and groups that make our lives hell. Those new disasters prompt new rounds of self-care, and the whole thing repeats!

Self-care doesn’t last a long time. Look, I love a men’s spa day at home. The effect I get from an afternoon of pampering may last a few hours or even a day before it starts to wear off. And when it does? I’m in the same world I was before. It’s possible that that moment of pause gave me the clarity of mind I needed to save the world. But is that what’s really happening?

I know that for myself, the more bleak things get outside the more I want to get away. Many of us even have the privilege of accessing that escape as often as we want. Not everyone wants or can afford to do so. Instant gratification is much easier to get than lasting world change. But it’s heartbreaking to see people disconnect so often as the world around us gets worse.

This is not the time for retreat. Building on the capitalism example earlier, lots of self-care is individual. Sometimes it’s a small group of people decompressing. But I wonder if self-care is another form of dissociating. Self-care often sells as a way to relax or unplug from reality for a while. I don’t need to be solving world problems whenever I spend time in the gym. But in turn, I don’t need to justify that time as “recharging myself for the next big fight.” Self-care may be a way to retreat when what we need is to engage.

Everyone fighting for themselves is a recipe for loneliness. Some aspects of society are so hard because family units can’t rely on anyone else for help. People who can afford to often outsource their needs to paid or unpaid laborers. That kind of care often goes unreciprocated. It’s not likely to create the deep relationships we see within strong communities. Instead of always turning to self-care, I’d like to see more people consider community care. Here’s why.

community care good

We will have to rely on each other more. There’s no real debate about this. We’re not getting fully automated luxury queer space communism by 2030 (I dare you to prove me wrong). In the future ahead, we won’t be able to rely on governments or even charities to meet our needs forever. We’ll need something that’s flexible and much more durable.

We all need places where we can radicalize each other. I’m tired of millionaire political consultants scolding me to fall in line. The systems we’ve known our whole lives are falling apart if they’re not being torn apart. The way most of us see the world is too limiting. We need to spend more time in places that are dreaming of ways out for everyone.

No one is immune to community care. Whatever actions we take for community care must include us, too. Most charitable activities orient themselves towards doing things for the “less fortunate.” They rely on the promise that we share our good fortune because we’ll never need it. That mentality won’t get us out of the many pits we find ourselves in. They won’t lead to our liberation. Instead, support mutual aid and other efforts where community members help each other.

what community care is not

Most of what most of us are doing probably isn’t community care. Big caveat here of course because I don’t know your life. If they’re meaningful to you, by all means, continue doing them. But we won’t get anywhere new by staying exactly where we are now. Consider what it means to care for your community. What does care look like to the people living in your city, neighborhood, or town? Here are a few ideas that might not fit.

Book clubs and social events. Learn on your own time! If these activities build up your community, build it. Gather your friends and loved ones. Extend the solidarity you feel towards the people and communities around you.

One-sided charity. I’m including little free food pantries and donations to non-profits. We don’t need anonymous donors. Get to know and talk to people face-to-face.

Unchecked power dynamics. The privilege that each of carries can be an advantage or a liability depending on the space. Be aware of the power you have. Care for communities alongside your equals, no matter their walk of life.

the care we give

The problems we face are so intractable and so… everywhere. I understand the desire to rest or do something else. But an investments of your time and energy will have a much more lasting impact.

I’m setting some goals for myself as this year draws to a close. I hope you can adopt ones like these. Starting now, I commit to:

• doing something new
• doing something more radical
• doing something where I feel in solidarity with other community members

Seek out groups that are community-based and not led by outsiders. Seek out groups with fiscal sponsors or even no tax structure. Find a place where you belong. I promise that it will feel better than what we have now.

As an elected official, McBride deserves a thorough examination of her beliefs and values.

The post Sarah McBride Is a Zionist appeared first on Autostraddle.

In an effort to maintain mystique and interpretive distance, a lot of musicians are hesitant to explain exactly what their songs are, you know, about. Hayden Anhedönia, who makes music as Ethel Cain, does not have that inclination. On the topic of her haunted new track “Punish,” she wrote that it is about “a pedophile who was shot by the child’s father and now lives in exile where he physically maims himself to simulate the bullet wound in order to punish himself.” So that settles that! (The idea is based on a true story from the ’80s.) To be fair, she added, “The song can be whatever you want it to be.” But her description is so specific—and harrowing—that it reads like a dare to all those songwriters who are still hung up on regrettable exes and vague trauma, bound by their own lived experience: Stop playing it safe.

There are very few current artists who have the imagination and the nerve to go near such pitch-black subject matter—and even fewer, if any, who also have more than 3 million listeners on Spotify and regularly play to thousands of obsessive fans live. As Ethel Cain has gathered her sizable cult, her music has only gotten stranger and slower and more esoteric: The eerie moan of a playground swing runs throughout “Punish,” which moves at the pace of a slug sliming down the hood of a creepy white van.

Would it be nice if she dabbled in pop melodies again, like on “Crush” and “American Teenager”? I guess. She is good at that. But there are plenty of pop artists out there with sticky top lines, desperate for their 15 seconds of TikTok fame. On the other hand, there is only one notable musician I know of who’s filming 72-minute YouTube vlogs about their extensive history with the paranormal, as Anhedönia did a few weeks ago. At this point, she makes singers like Lana Del Rey and Florence Welch, to whom she has frequently been compared, sound like Kidz Bop. Instead, she is seriously challenging ambient-folk sorceress Grouper in the category of Music You Hear When You Die, and There Is No Heaven or Hell, and You’re Just Floating in Blackness for Eternity.

“Punish” is the first track released from her forthcoming 90-minute project Perverts, which, if recent live previews are any indication, will be an exercise in painstaking drone; at nearly seven minutes, it is the second shortest song on the entire record. Even though “Punish” is ostensibly told through the perspective of a child abuser, the song is not trying to be some kind of edgelord provocation. Anhedönia, who grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, uses the premise to explore the outermost extremes of shame, love, and forgiveness. “Shame is sharp, and my skin gives so easy,” she sings in a deliberate cadence, as if her voice itself were floating in limbo. “Only God knows, only God would believe/That I was an angel, but they made me leave.” At that, the grungiest guitar since In Utero descends upon the sparse track, like the blood gushing through the elevator in The Shining. As she repeats “I am punished by love” over this flow of distortion, the impact is as discomfiting as it is mesmerizing. This is the Ethel Cain effect: The darker it gets, the more you want—need—to follow her candlelit path.