#downtown 81

[filmgifs]

“The city looked big and I felt big ‘cause I was part of the landscape. I’m an artist. When you tell people that, they usually say: ‘What’s your medium?’ I usually say: ‘Extra large.’”

Jean-Michel Basquiat Downtown 81 (2000) dir. Edo Bertoglio

[steezylad]

[hiyutekivigil]

downtown '81, 2001

jean-michel basquiat

[uzumaakies]

I ♥️ THE OLD, DILAPIDATED, SLEAZY, SHITHOLE NY YOU SEE IN OLD MOVIES

[spilladabalia]

James White and the Blacks - Sax Maniac (Live - Downtown 81)

[ogmensch]

[rudetuesday]

[herbaklava]

MUBI for the win. ✨

[marcogiovenale]

blonde redhead / dna _ in "downtown 81"

DNA = Arto Lindsay + Ikue Mori + Tim Wright and Jean-Michel Basquiat, “Blonde Redhead” sequence filmed winter ’80/’81 in NYC from the film Downtown 81 (2000).

[shreyaajmani]

Mumbai Art Scene Boosted by Gallery Weekend, New Galleries

The city's stock as a contemporary art hub has risen with the arrival of a new art fair and spaces including Gallery XXL and Nature Morte.

Text by Shreya Ajmani for Ocula.

[vintagelasvegas]

Union Plaza Hotel & Casino, July 1971

The hotel was built on the site of the former Union Pacific depot and Greyhound bus terminal. Two companies financed the hotel: Upland Industries, a subsidiary of Union Pacific Corp, and Scott Corp. directed by Frank E. Scott. The Scott Corp. was the landlord, Scott was the CEO and president of the hotel, with partners Sen. Howard Cannon, and downtown casino stalwarts J.K. Houssels Jr, Jackie Gaughan, Sam Boyd, and Bill Boyd, who managed the “world’s largest casino.”

'70: Aug. 10, Groundbreaking. (LA Times 8/9/70, RJ 7/1/71)

'70: Nov., Union Station demolished. (RJ 11/24/70)

'71: May 2, Final UP train service. Amtrak was established, and passenger service through Las Vegas is suspended.

'71: Jul. 2, Union Plaza Hotel & Casino is opened. Architects: Zick & Sharp (Las Vegas) in association with Stanley J. How (Omaha). Contractor: Blount-Yoxen Construction Co. The hotel complex contained a bus station, 500-seat showroom, 2nd story pool in front of the hotel, and an adjacent parking garage. The 504-room hotel was roughly the same size as the Fremont Hotel and smaller than some on the Strip, but it boasted the largest casino floor in Las Vegas at 66,000 sq ft.

'75: Jul., Sports book addition. KDWN Radio 720 AM begins broadcasting from the hotel with a station on the 2nd floor.

'79: Oct. 28, Amtrak’s Desert Wind line through Las Vegas begins the first regularly scheduled service since ‘71. Small room and platform in the rear of the hotel is used as the depot.

'81: Apr., Rooftop sign and lights changed. Design by Charles Barnard, Ad Art. 

'82: Construction of 26-story south tower, parking garage, and conversion of the front pool to restaurant designed by Louis Pereira. (RJ 3/16/82, 9/19/82, 10/28/82)

'83: Center Stage restaurant opens in Jan. (RJ 1/23/83) Mural depicting the past, present, and future of passenger rail service created in the hotel between the lobby and depot area. Tower topped off in Apr. and opened in fall. Total rooms: 1030. (RJ 4/23/83, 10/20/83)

'90-'93: Jackie Gaughan acquires the holdings of Union Plaza founder Frank Scott, followed by Upland’s participation in '93, becoming the majority shareholder and ending the relationship with Union Pacific. The hotel is renamed “Jackie Gaughan’s Plaza” circa ’92, though the signs remain unchanged, with “Union” on the rooftop sign for several years.

2004: Mar. 26, Plaza is sold. Union Plaza Hotel & Casino Inc, Exber Inc and Gaughan South sell Plaza, Las Vegas Club, Gold Spike, Western Hotel, and 60 acres of land and non-gaming properties to Barrick Gaming and Tamares Real Estate for $82M. The Barrick group plans a "themed street behind the Plaza which will re-create the ambience of old downtown Las Vegas." (RJ 3/26/2004)

2005: Tamares buys Barrick’s interest in Plaza hotel and the Las Vegas properties; Larry Woolf managing.

2009: Firefly opens in the former Center Stage restaurant; Oscar's Steakhouse opens in its place in 2011.

2014: Jonathan Jossel takes over as the CEO of the Plaza, the youngest non-restricted gaming licensees in Las Vegas. 

Construction in 1971. The first photo is dated 1/12/1971, Nevada State Museum Las Vegas.

Fremont & Casino Center, Apr. 1971. Union Plaza construction past Main St.

Sal Sagev Hotel and Golden Gate Casino; Union Plaza; Las Vegas Club and the Dugout restaurant. 1971. Photo via Plaza Hotel.

Postcards circa 1971.

Timeline Sources: UP Hotel Plans Ready for Signing. Las Vegas Review-Journal, 10/3/69; Work on 22-story hotel to start soon. Review-Journal, 8/2/70 p1; No Parking Here. Review-Journal, 8/10/70; Union Plaza Magic Hour Near. Review-Journal, 7/1/71; Plaza celebrates LV ‘uptown’. Review-Journal, 8/13/71; Rod Smith. Four Gaughan casinos pass to Barrick. Review-Journal, 3/26/2004; Howard Stutz. Lady Luck. Review-Journal, 12/13/2005; Oliver Lovat. A Golden Age for Downtown. GGB Magazine, 2021.

[vintage-tigre]

•New York Beat•

- photographer Glenn O'Brien captures the fertile and dynamic 1980s New York art scene in this Basquiat focused book. The making of Downtown '81. Edited by O'Brien and Maripol and featuring Madonna, Warhol, Keith Haring and Debbie Harry

[steezylad]

[hiyutekivigil]

jean-michel basquiat

[kaijuno]

LOUISE JENKINS MERIWETHER

(May 8, 1923 – October 10, 2023)

Louise Jenkins Meriwether, a novelist, essayist, journalist, and social activist, was the only daughter of Marion Lloyd Jenkins and his wife, Julia. Meriwether was born May 8, 1923, in Haverstraw, New York, to parents from South Carolina.

After the 1929 stock market crash, Louise’s family migrated from Haverstraw to New York City. They moved to Brooklyn first and later to Harlem. The third of five children, Louise grew up during the Great Depression, a time that would deeply affect her young life and ultimately influence her as a writer.

Louise Jenkins attended Public School 81 in Harlem and graduated from Central Commercial High School in downtown Manhattan. In the 1950s, she received a B.A. in English from New York University before meeting and marrying Angelo Meriwether, a Los Angeles teacher. Although this marriage and later marriage to Earle Howe ended in divorce, Louise continued to use the Meriwether name. In 1965, Louise earned an M.A. in journalism from the University of California at Los Angeles. Her first book, Daddy Was a Number Runner, a fictional account of the economic devastation of Harlem in the Great Depression, appeared in 1970 as the first novel to emerge from the Watts Writers’ Workshop.

The circumstances surrounding this photo are largely unnatributed to larger context but some citation indicates that Jenkins-Merriwether was being questioned by police at a protest.

[cal-daisies-and-briars]

🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓🐓

Hi!

81 for 🐓:

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The pond where he used to ice skate. The library. His elementary school. It’s all still there. And he is a stranger to it. Which… Is for the best. It’s the way he’s meant to be, he thinks. He never belonged here. 

He doesn’t want to belong here, is the thing. In Hershey, Pennsylvania. A small tourist city. A place you pass through. Not where most people dream of ending up, unless they’re really into chocolate. And Buck knows he doesn’t want to be here in any way, shape, or form. And yet… It stings? It hurts him, just a little. It hurts him that he’s nothing here. It’s so much of his pain, and he didn’t even leave a scratch on it in return. 

He wonders if, decades from now, he’ll have left an impression anywhere. Will anyone think he’s the love of their life? Will he have kids that love him? Will he just be someone Eddie used to know? Somehow, that one hurts the most. Maybe that’s just the pain of proximity. 

Buck continues walking in the dark and the light snow until he makes it to downtown. His nose and feet are cold. His breath puffs around him. But he doesn’t feel like panicking anymore. He doesn’t feel like crying. The cold air has left him as numb as the tips of his fingers. He’s just gotta keep walking. 

Eventually, he gets hungry. He missed dinner. And he certainly won’t be back at an appropriate dinner hour. So he slips into a pub he doesn’t recognize. Something built since he left. Somewhere unfamiliar. He doesn’t want any memories with his dinner. 

It happens while he’s waiting to be seated. Something he doesn’t expect at all. Mostly because, honestly, he’d assumed everyone had forgotten about him. Apparently, he’s wrong.

“Evan?” A feminine voice asks from off to the side of him. “Evan Buckley?”

He turns to the side, to see a woman his age with auburn hair and very prominent eye makeup walking towards him from the pub bathrooms. It takes him a minute to recognize her. There’s over a decade of distance between them. But he places her. 

“Miranda?” He asks. “Miranda Fraiser?”

“It really is you,” she grins. “Wow. I mean, who else would have that birthmark?”

He chuckles. “Yeah, it’s kind of a dead giveaway, isn’t it?”

“Just a little,” she agrees. “But, Evan, this is crazy! You’re in Hershey!”

“Just for the holidays,” he admits. 

He and Miranda stare at each other for a second, and in that second, Buck is thrown back into the past. She was his first serious girlfriend in high school. He had really loved her, once. Or, what he thought was love. Teenage puppy love. It was that sort of classic high school story. The one he thought meant it was supposed to last. Football player and cheerleader. She was in the grade above him. She’d left for school, broken up. She wanted a college boyfriend. He’d been heartbroken. 

“Um, are you here with anyone?” Miranda asks. 

He shakes his head. “Nah, just on a walk and stopped to grab a bite.”

“Do you want to join our table?” She asks. “It’s all people you know. It’d be nice to catch up. Hear more about your life. You’re sort of a mystery around here, Evan.”

A mystery? Him? What did he ever do that was mysterious? But… Isn’t that sort of flattering? Maybe… Maybe that would be good. He thinks he’s cooler now than he was in school.

“I’d like that,” he says. “Thank you, Miranda.”

Her green eyes practically glitter.