21st Year in New York

An early New York assignment: Spalding Gray, photographed at his Wooster St apt, October 1990

This week marks my twenty-first year in New York. I moved from my parent’s basement in the Toronto suburb of Etobicoke to Williamsburg, Brooklyn on July 14th, 1990. I took a space in a warehouse building on Bedford Ave, across the hall from some friends. It had a skylight, but no windows, leaving me with a particular challenge when it came to installing air conditioning during my first few months of hot, humid New York summer.

As I was finishing college my professor Dave Heath convinced me that I should move to New York as soon as possible, and work on building a career from the bottom there. He told me that if I thought that I could transplant any Toronto career momentum in New York I would be sorely disappointed. Some editorial supporters already in there, like Bruce Ramsay at Lear’s and Robert Newman with the Village Voice, and then Guitar World, also encouraged me to make the move.

A self-portrait, at my apt on Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, Sept 1990