Going Into the City by Robert Christgau

Author:Robert Christgau [Christgau, Robert]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Retail, Biography & Autobiography, Nonfiction, Journalist, Pop Culture
ISBN: 9780062238818
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2015-02-24T05:00:00+00:00

In mid-1967 Ellen had moved again, to a four-room with full bath at 308 East 8th Street, a block south of my 608 East 9th pad. While I didn’t move in officially till November—the big commitment was walking the metal wardrobe down three flights and up two—this was our place. When I bought my first serious stereo with six hundred bucks in Sam Goody’s credit, the 308 living room was where it went; at 608 I made do with a suitcase portable. Rumor traced our luxe abode back to, of all people, Richie Havens, who became our symbol of folkie smarm when he sought sing-along by “forgetting” “With a Little Help from My Friends” at the Fillmore East. But the rent receipts Ellen got were made out to one Amber Kovanda, who we assumed had pasted the glow-in-the-dark stars on the dark-blue living room ceiling, glued an Indian bedspread to one wall, and hung a Union Jack over the airshaft window. We added shelving for our books and records—industrial-strength for the latter—and a hideous mustard-colored living room carpet. The sturdy, double-leafed, cockroach-friendly maple kitchen table was from Ellen’s parents. This item must have been a newlywed hit circa 1940—I had an identical table from my parents at 608. Cockroaches aside, I miss it.

Ellen, who later made a public point of not celebrating Christmas, had the grace to accompany me to not just Christmas but Easter, and my parents had the grace to accept our living in sin. This was a bigger stretch for them than for the Willises, as was everything about the ’60s. It helped that Doug had kept the faith—in June 1967 he married a nurse from North Shore Baptist and then relocated to California to work for Brigade. But in general my folks were pretty brave about it. Ellen scared them—she scared Len Mogel, for Chrissake—but we loved each other, and they saw that. Once my dad pointed out that I’d never know what it was like to make love to one woman my whole life, but when I responded that he’d never know what it was like to make love to more than one, he assented and we left it at that. He also showed his support by shoring up our domestic plant—the two of us spent hours securing that hi-fi to large pieces of furniture.

That was the neighborhood that came with the rent, and for me the long walk to the subway was a bigger burden than the occasional prickle of dread on the back of my neck. By then the mixed-use St. Mark’s Place of 1960 had become a hippie rialto, crammed with beggars I ignored and dealers I took to regaling with “Got any aspirin? How about No-Doz?” But Avenue B was where I’d settled down. We ate bargain lox from Avenue C until the purveyor died, copious bad Cantonese on Avenue B, the new “falafel” sandwiches an Israeli purveyor on First Avenue started at fifteen cents and slowly raised to half a buck, kasha varnishkes at Ratner’s, and pastrami at the Second Avenue Deli.

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