By Caitlin Hawke

Photos by Ozzie Alfonso, Robin Bell and Barbara Boynton

On October 31st, it was déjà boo all over again on West 102nd Street.

Thanks to a team of volunteers headed up by Jane Hopkins, the annual Halloween festivities left no man, woman or child behind.  The pint-sized promenaders trucked around the block in full regalia and were sweetly rewarded for their efforts.  And the not-so-pint-sized also turned out in force.  Super heroes, fluffy pets, princesses, a bag of bones and a tooth.  Yes. A tooth.  (And to be fair, a dentist).  These were the costumes of the night.

Have a look through the gallery below and try to figure out who among us isn't dying to get into the spirit.

Superheroes

By Caitlin Hawke

Call me nostalgic.  Or anti-progress.  Or a cockeyed pessimist.  But I am a sucker for this kind of picture.  I like the grit and texture of the NYC of the 70s. Where empty lots and open sky sang out.  I liked a city where pretense was sequestered, and most of the town belonged to the people. And by the people, I mean all the people.

With a hair-raising rumor that NYCHA is beginning the process of privatizing its housing stock, I grow concerned that the incredible vibrancy of New York will finally and forever be extinguished.  That every last unit of housing will be for the growing upper classes.  And worse. That I'll be here to witness it first hand.

And so, that is why I find myself drawn to this time capsule of a shot.  An otherwise banal cityscape.  That comforts me somehow.

H/t to @BiggDoggNYC for the shot.

By Caitlin Hawke

The IRT headhouse, now gone. Not quite old Bloomingdale, but good and old-timey still the same.
This posts with a H/T to @Discovering_NYC, a lover -- and knower -- of all things historic in our fair city. And one of the people in New York that makes you happy to know there are kindred spirits aplenty out there in a city rapidly transforming.

By Caitlin Hawke

I've been dying to delve into the Seventies. I wasn't here then, of course. But certain things make me wish I had been.  "Ten Uptown," the hip consortium of self-named artists is just one of those things.  It's like they fell straight out of New York Magazine.  I used to grab copies of that magazine from my mother's pile before she read it cover to cover, right down to when we duked it out over who would read Mary Ann Madden's brilliant "Competition" results to whom. Never mind the Sondheim crosswords.  God, I miss those.

But I digress.

Recently, discussing the antics of one neighbor -- Len Tredanari -- with other neighbors -- Neil and Gerry Borrell, I learned of the Ten Uptown group, co-founded by Elaine Wechsler around 1976. Gerry and Neil kindly shared an original press release below and the image above relating to the group's first exhibition in 1979. I wonder with this new economy if there are as many and as diverse a concentration of artists living in these few blocks as back then.  Maybe these Ten Uptown members' names below will ring a bell.  I know several of them, and they are still going strong.
 
Sadly we lost Cherie at the beginning of the  year.  She was a co-founder not only of Ten Uptown, but also of the block assocation. And we lost her husband Len about a decade before Cherie's death. We still have Cherie's Broadway sculpture to remember her by. As for Len, his homemade wine and outrageous hose-wielding on Block Association Yard Sale Day are lost to neighborhood lore now.  But he certainly is far from forgotten.


Ten Uptown Members circa 1976
Neil Borrell, graphics
Lynn Braswell, drawing
Ruth Cherry, sculptor
Jeri Drucker, painter
Mari Lyons, painter
Jane McClintock, sculptor
Annette Oko, painter
Nancy Sirkus, painter, photographer
Virginia Smit, printmaker
Cherie Tredanari, welded sculpture
Elaine Wechsler, painter
Hannelore Teddie Wolff, painter

Pictures and press release are courtesy of Neil and Gerry Borrell.

By Caitlin Hawke