Life as Art: The Club 57 Story

Chapter One

The Bells Of Saint Stan

They ring every day at 6pm at the St. Stanislaus Church on 7th Street between Avenue A and First Avenue. That time for me is the most secret and sacred time of the day. The sunset, the calm, and the strange feeling of unknown yearning and nostalgia comes to my heart, my soul and my mind. That special time of day when even my body wants to participate in thirst of unknown immortal happiness with somebody whom I want to touch and hold, full of love for the world, humanity, nature and the spirit of goodness. The twilight comes slowly, moving on the city streets, then on the roofs of buildings until at last it touches the Empire State Building. It covers the daily life of its pedestrians, and the inhabitants behind the Venetian blinds and curtains. I often close my eyes and I dream about that secret love that is mostly not accomplished. Then my heart sings a song of melancholy for an unknown dizzy dream. Then I think how many people have the same feelings at that moment.

But even though the night covers the view of people’s faces, the voice of bells comes everywhere behind secret curtains to the most secret secluded places in the city and in our hearts. The bells ringing like the beat of my heart together with them, falling on the East Village. Wherever I go—to stores, to restaurants, to clubs or to the subway. From the beginning of this chapter I wanted to look at the East Village from a high building, from where one could see the streets around here. But there are none here. And the towers of the churches are small, hardly higher than the roofs of the houses. Only the sound of those bells can go everywhere, where neither the towers’ shadows nor the rays of the sun can go.

This sound can tell you where it was and what it saw and took with it across the whole city. And what it whispered back to the church tower from whence it came, and to the bells from which it was born.

I have lived many years in the heart of the East Village on St. Mark’s Place. St. Mark’s Place is actually 8th Street, but between Avenue A and 3rd Avenue, it has taken that name from the St. Mark’s Church which stands on Second Avenue and 10th Street. Whew, it’s probably too much for you, but that’s how it is.

This street was the most Polish Street in Manhattan just a few years ago. If you walk from Broadway eastward, then you will see many crowded places between Third and Second Avenues. That was where the Polish National Home was, now the Rehabilitation Center. There is still Twardowski Travel Agency and across the street is the Polish barber.

One block further, between Second and First Aves, there is the Polish Catholic Church under number 57, which gave its name to some Art Club in 1978. And under number 56 is the Polish Democratic Club, while close to First Avenue was the Theater 80 St. Mark’s. On its roof you still can see the Polish national symbol, the White Eagle. Then on the next block is the Polish school, with its St. Stanislaus Church, which goes through to 7th Street—there were several Polish stores and offices.

But now only the White Eagle remains, the last sign of Polish society on St. Mark’s Place. The same thing happened to Little Italy downtown. Looks like those natives made enough money and moved to better places to live, and they left behind them, still alive in the East Village, a church and a few restaurants, including Teresa’s, which has the best Polish food. I am still here. The people who live here have changed. And I really like them. There were Italians and Jews as well, but now the only ethnic community that remains is Ukrainian.

And how does St. Mark’s Place look now?

Looking toward Broadway we see Astor Place, where the 6 train brings the crowd from Wall Street and Uptown. Lafayette Street and Fourth Avenue. converge here too, making the place very wide open. In the middle the Cubic Rotating Sculpture balances on one corner, and all the young tourists feel compelled to turn it on its axis. Off to the side, close to 3rd Avenue and St. Mark’s place, sits the famous old Cooper Union Library.

I like this building very much because of its architecture and elevation, on which you can look without tiring your eyes. Its delicate decorative elements against the brown sandstone evoke the treasure of books within. It seems to want to tell to students and people passing: Come to me, I am for you, I want to live in your mind! I will give you the best only somebody who loves you can give. I will give you my wisdom, nobility and dignity for whom the people will have respect and admiration, and I ask for nothing in return. That library imposes its character on the neighborhood. It puts its mark on NYU, the dormitories, on the traffic of the streets.

That library is putting its mark on the faces of boys and girls, which like a river flowing to St. Mark’s place and past the library, smile to her with yearning for the wisdom and knowledge hiding within her walls. And probably no place exists in the world like here, where in this river of people you can spend a long time and not see anyone older than 30. It seems not long ago that I was one of them, could move my head looking for the happy faces of my friends and the expression made by thier clothing and manners. The boys and girls cross St. Mark’s Place, and it is more a parade than just walking to their apartments, clubs, restaurants.

St. Mark’s Place is like their living room. It is the most prosperous place. Here you can choose books and records, you can buy the best punk clothing, accessories and jewelry. In this block is my favorite restaurant, that small Japanese restaurant called Zen, where I like to meet my friends. Here you can buy old books and magazines from a table on the sidewalk, along with Indian incense, if the smoke from the cars is not enough. Life here flourishes 25 hours a day, and you can feel safer here than at home. Here at the curb you can see the most decorated motorcycle in the world. It should be in the Museum of Modern Art together with its owner, who looks like his vehicle.

Motorcycle gangs like this street too. I had two motorcycles myself once, and I loved them as much as a cowboy loves his horse, or maybe like a boy loves his girl. I don’t have it anymore, but you know that really love is eternal, isn’t it? Don’t tell me you don’t believe in love. Start to love your vehicle. I miss that time very much because I was so young, I was 20 when I got that bike, and will always remember the country roads and trackless earth and whistle of wind in my ears, caressing my cheeks.

Let’s go to the next block of St. Mark’s Place, between First and Second Avenues. It is the quietest of these blocks, maybe because there are not too many stores. Instead there are three churches, two cafes, Orlin and Jules’, and the Pearl Theater Company. They give this block social character. There are many beautiful acacias growing here, climbing plants on the houses, which fill this block with nature, grace and charm. Here at #57, in the basement of the Polish Catholic Church, from 1978 to 1983 was the smallest and perhaps the most creative club of the 20th century, if I may say so, the East Village Students’ Club, on which steps the members would sit and drink Bud and talk about their financial, sexual, artistic and life’s problems.

The great artists Keith Haring, Kenny Scharf and Jean-Michel Basquiat came together here, with their many friends, including me, Stanley, the first witness and admirer of their youth and creativity.

There is also that shoestore, whose wall contains a mural by Arnie Charnick. This artist painted many commercial advertisements at many stores around here, and his work really speaks to me. Near the corner often you can see a beautiful girl. Her eyes are like eyes from a Modigliani painting. Everybody knows her, including the police from the 9th Precinct. Once she walked these streets like ballerina, causing even the cops’ mouths to water. She doesn’t exist anymore, or maybe that’s her, but she is so out of it that she doesn’t know if she is hungry or not. It doesn’t matter to her. But she is looking at another corner, where Stromboli Pizza is, where Ann Magnuson with her friends from Club 57 liked to eat a 50-cent slice of pizza.

From where the girl stands you can see the St. Mark’s Bar at the Southeast corner. It has its own history, and not always a good reputation, but now it’s a pretty cool place to have a drink after you visit the East Village. On the other corner is the Old Dutch Cleaners. Not very interesting, but right outside of the place is a heavy-faced, streetwise girl known as the Untouchable Girl or the Queen Of Smoke. She has run her business for many years right next to the kindergarten, teaching the babies how to be happy with dry grass for $10 a pack. Anyway she has a few friends around her with little babies. They don’t know that along with their parents they’re selling grass, but at least somehow they share the profit—together with their uniformed friends who smile to them when they pass. We’d better go ahead, because the line has become long and she is busy. Now maybe we can hop to the Jaffa Café or to Café Mogador, both good, and on the same side of the street. At Mogador maybe we’ll meet my friend Terry. He likes to buy grass from the Queen of Smoke, go to dinner at the Mogador, and go to see monster movies at the St. Mark’s Theater. He used to have hundreds of friends, but now he is lost, good for nobody and nothing, just like the others, with the sick and lonely life of a drug kid; goodbye my child, I am going to see the Mojo Guitar Shop.

It’s always nice coming here. They have the music Terry loved, and I can talk to the owner about anything. It’s the friendliest music shop in the East Village. As soon as you pass the door of the store you already belong to the family of music. If you’d like to buy a guitar, or if you’d just like to have good conversation and don’t want to buy anything, come here too—you will learn much about style, songs, places and events. The location, the clientele, the old-fashioned interior, and most importantly the owner, make you feel like you are with really good friends. And you can invite them for a cup of coffee, of course.

There are still more bars and coffee houses on this block. I don’t go to every of them too often. From my bedroom window I can see café Sine-é, and Anseo, a bar specializing in poetry evenings. Often when I stay in my room or go to bed I fall asleep with a stanza of poetry in my mind. I like to listen to those voices; it reminds me of my childhood when I liked poetry very much. The tones of piano and poems relaxed my soul and inspired me. It’s still not so bad in this world if youth still likes poetry.

It is still the poorest of the art forms, but rich in the music, life and wisdom of the people. If it is boring to you then look to your boring and poor mind. Poetry is the mother of action, art and inspiration for the best brains in human history. Tonight the bells of St. Stan pull me to the Anseo club; tonight the poet Anna Frajlich was reciting her poems. Her expressions, her lyric phrases were going to my imagination, especially this one:

"Beautiful is my mother,

Every spring more beautiful … "

It reminds me of my own mother, not because of the subject, but it touched my heart because of the expression, which made me see beauty from mother’s wrinkles, and she has more wrinkles than years. It reminds me of her whole life, the work and pleasure that we shared, and the pain that we shared. She conquered America with me, and with her I trod down New York sidewalks looking for work, for the joy of New York life, from Greeenwich Village to Central Park. That gave us the idea in 1977 of creating and accumulating the street art at the tiny club in the East Village, when the East Village started to bloom together with the punk movement. Her smile was and really is poetry, and she gave that to the boys and girls when she was there talking to them. They were smiling and wondering, what is that older lady doing with us New York kids, and why aren’t we embarrassed to be with her, but instead feel so good at her presence? She loved them, and they paid her in kind. She was so lovely, like Anna Frajlich the poet said at the Anseo bar.

That was my feeling, but how about the feeling of that girl who started to weep in the corner of the bar? What she was thinking? Where is her mother, and another thousand mothers of kids who are escaping every year from the houses of their moms? And why?

The next morning on the steps in front of the Anseo bar I saw a girl holding a handsome boy. It didn’t look like they had family in New York. All they had was each other. She held him with her left arm and touched his hair and cheeks with so much love, in my mind more mother’s love than lover’s love, and it was so romantic and scenic, and the boy looked like he had been saved by an angel. I don’t know if they’d already had breakfast, but I know it was the most beautiful picture I had seen in a long time. I even wanted to go down to the street to them and give them some money. It was well worth it to me, to satisfy my feeling of love for them. I didn’t do it, I was too embarrassed to disturb them. I feel as if they were my own kids that I had abandoned, and I wanted to go to them and give them a hug and ask them for their friendship and offer at least the comfort of my life; but I didn’t go to them. I tried to control myself even after I realized there was no need to. I thought I was being oversensitive, infantile, too emotional. Why do I have to be ashamed to be myself whole my life?

I have learned how to be hard and unemotional; I have played that role but believe it or not, when I was young I was the softest guy in the world.

That is why, when I first saw Romeo And Juliet on the stairs of Anseo, I knew they belonged to my world. I can feel it more and more, and I can do it only in the East Village, where I see here all kinds of people: many races and nations, smart and those not so, small and tall, punk and yuppie, mostly happy and wise and poor and so young and beautiful with their youth and grace, that remind me of my unfulfilled life and dreams. Now my best joy is watching them, happy with their ecstasy of life. I pushed my life so hard, and I had a life rich with excitement, not with money, because of adventures greater than Tom Sawyer’s and Huckleberry Finn’s, and all of them who walk on St. Mark’s Place understand that. They are looking for a lost world of honesty, they want to give their lives to that research with proud head and spirit. They want to participate in creating a better world. And this is how my life was, which is why I love them more than anybody in this world.

You see? I told you—the voice of St. Stan’s bells are taking my secrets and whispering them not only to its tower but also to the human beings like you. Why? Because you are the tower with your heart like St. Stan’s bells, beating and ringing the song of your soul.

I’ve closed the window a little. I want to read this book and concentrate on it. It is about Michelangelo, and it’s called The Agony and the Ecstasy. I read it again, having had the time. He has become my idol even though he is not alive. But I am not sure if he isn’t alive, he still is touching every human being of every age and nationality. He is not only my idol. I have to tell you that when I went to his grave in Florence I started to talk to him. I didn’t ask him any questions, I just told him, Thank you for what you have done for humanity, and for me personally, and I have a message for you. I registered you as a Club 57 member, aren’t you happy? And when I looked up to the head of his sculpture I could see he was more proud than just a few minutes before I came to the Church of Santa Croce. And I thank him for the Pietà and his unfinished slaves, and the hands of God and Adam on the Sistine Chapel’s ceiling.

The music and singing from Café Sin-é is coming to my ears more gently than balsam to a sore spot on my body. My eyes become tired and together with the poems and that music, I fall asleep with the book in my hands, hoping to have a nice dream.

With those two club/cafés generating this new style of social life, as do many cafés, restaurants and clubs around here, as well as several new art galleries, I feel like Club 57 has taken over the streets and I am in the middle of the club, but this time not working hard, just enjoying the East Village’s inspiration and its new creations.

Just to the left there is another café/restaurant, Stingy Lulu’s, and then Nino’s Pizza. This is the one where I eat most often now. Its pizza beats any other’s around St. Mark’s, and besides it is so close to my apartment. I feel good around the people who eat here—this is