NYC Till Dawn Meet-up 1998

New York City, USA. 31-May-1998.

Way back in the late 1990's I joined a Marc Bolan mailing list called "Till Dawn". This was in the early days of the world wide web when mailing lists were a way to communicate with like minded people. 

I used to travel to the US several times a year on business and happened to mention that I was visiting New York in May 1998. It was suggested that some of us "tillers" could meet up and so it came to pass. Some lived in New York, some flew in from elsewhere in the States and Canada and kudos to Jorgen who flew in all the way from Sweden! This is the story of that gathering.

Breakfast with Jorgen: I cannot remember which hotel I was staying in for work. The company obviously paid the flights and the weekday nights but I would have had to pay the extra couple of nights myself. Jorgen was on a budget and staying in The Malibu Studios Hotel on Broadway. We met for breakfast at nearby Nookies restaurant and re-established our acquaintance from when we first met in real life. That had been at a T.Rextasy gig in Cambridge the previous September.

Breakfast - MarkMcL, Jorgen.

We met in a place called The Lounge: I don’t know who suggested it or even whether it still exists but that was where we gathered, somewhere in the East Village. Some of us wearing our matching Marc Bolan T-shirts. We had a chat and drinks, and someone brought along copies of a fanzine to share out.

Lounge - Ivan, zoom, CliffBro, CliffSky.

Lounge - zoom and soda.

Lounge - Jorgen and Ivan.

Lounge - DaveR and Jorgen.

Lounge - ?, zoom, Jorgen, Elaine, Ivan, DJ.

Lounge - the gang.

Lounge - Jorgen (photo credit Jorgen).

Lounge - The gang (photo credit Jorgen).

Lounge - MarkMcL, DaveR, Jorgen, Ivan, zoom (photo credit Jorgen).

Jewel 2 fanzine.

We dined at Restaurant 7A: again I don’t know how we picked this place but food and more beer was definitely required.

Restaurant 7A - DaveR, Jorgen, zoom, MarkMcL.

Street - Jorgen, MarkMcL, DaveR.

Street - DaveR, Jorgen, MarkMcL (photo credit Jorgen).

Street - DaveR, MarkMcL, zoom (photo credit Jorgen).

We went to CBGB : the legendary New York music venue where a number of famous people launched their careers including The Ramones, Talking Heads and Blondie featuring the lovely Debbie Harry. We saw some aspiring band whose name I did not note so who knows if they went on to become famous!

CBGB Club - zoom, MarkMcL, Jorgen, DaveR.

We went for a late (early?) breakfast: apparently it is a New York thing to do after a night out. Not that I was ever one for going to the nightclub into the wee small hours. Anyhow we ended up having a full breakfast at 4 am and then back to the hotel for sleep.

Late Café - Jorgen, zoom, DaveR, MarkMcL.

We had lunch at Katz's deli: I think it must’ve been the following day that we went to the legendary Katz's deli where the famous "When Harry Met Sally" fake orgasm scene was filmed. 

Katz - zoom, DaveR, Elaine, Ivan, Jorgen.

We took the Staten Island ferry: Jorgen and I hung around as the two long haul tourists. We time to spare so we did a return trip on the Staten Island ferry. It was, and still is, free to foot passengers so it was a fun thing to go out and back and get a free view of Manhattan from the water. 

Staten Island Ferry - Jorgen, MarkMcL.

I dipped my toe in the Hudson:  wherever I go, particularly to a foreign shore I like to dip my toe in the sea, or in this case the mighty Hudson River.

MarkMcL dips his toe in the Hudson River.

I met up with a colleague of my brother: My brother worked in New York for 18 months. His office address was One Park Avenue, so that was easy to remember. By the time of this visit he was back in the UK but I did meet up with one of his ex-colleagues for a cocktail.

Bar - MarkMcL and Sheila.

I drink champagne on the roof of the metropolitan museum: I decided to fit in some culture while I was there so went to the Metropolitan Museum. Whilst there I thought I would celebrate my visit with a glass of champagne looking out over Central Park.

Champagne on the Metropolitan Museum roof

My word that was a long time ago!

Note: This post was prompted by Jorgen posting on facebook some photos from this event that I had never seen before! That inspired me to rework the clunky gallery on my website using some more up-to-date technology than Notepad and an FTP client. 

Back then it was chemical film, you posted off the roll and got physical photos back a week later. No digital cameras or smart phones then. Luckily I had access to a scanner at work although it was the size of a fridge. I then shrunk the pictures down to a size tiny by today's standard. That was because many people accessed the internet via dial up telephone connections that were really low bandwidth - tell that to the youth of today! 

Someday I will dig out the archive CD's and post some higher res photos.