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The ‘Boogie Down Bronx’ Is What It Is

NY1 and Baruch College conducted a poll of Bronx residents to determine, among other things, what nickname for their borough they prefer. By a large margin, survey respondents answered “the Boogie Down Bronx,” a reference to the borough’s status as the birthplace of hip-hop. The nickname dates back to the 1970s dance parties where DJs […]

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What’s He Building in There? Watch Boogie Make Demonic Wet Plate Collodion Prints

We love Boogie. The Belgrade-born, Brooklyn-based photographer’s black-and-white photos and true grit and access has fascinated us for years. Then, he went color. Now he’s on that wet plate collodion on black plexiglass. Boogie’s ongoing DEMONS portraiture series is eerie and expressive, but it’s also a poised departure from his photojournalist style — Just click the tabs on his website: NYC, […]

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Outside In NYC, Circa 1980

Back in 1979, 19-year-old Peter Anderson decamped from his native Glasgow and set his sights on London to study at the Royal College of Art with the dream of becoming a fashion photographer. He arrived in the city just a post-punk era began to take root, radiating out from underground pubs where bands took the […]

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Never-Before-Seen Photos from Janette Beckman’s Iconic Hip Hop Archive

📷: Eric B & Rakim, NYC (1987) ©Janette Beckman In 1982, British photographer Janette Beckman landed in New York with plans to spend Christmas with a friend but was quickly entranced by the city’s singular mix of creativity, rebellion, and decadence. After a decade of “benign neglect” promulgated by the Nixon White House, New York […]

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What Other Cool Shit Does the Smithsonian Have?

Above: Tony Hawk’s first skateboard. (📷: National Museum of American History) In the newish Tony Hawk documentary, the often-spotted but identity-mistaken skater casually mentions how he donated his first skateboard to the Smithsonian. It was a “Bahne skateboard with red Stoker urethane wheels on metal trucks” according to its listing in the government’s colossal collection […]

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Falside Talks About His New EP, Producing Music and His Influences

You may not have heard of Falside, but if you live in New York City, chances are you’ve heard his music without even realizing it. The 26-year-old music producer, named Kevin Fallon, has worked with the best of the best, including Action Bronson, Jeru the Damaja, Vast Aire (Cannibal Ox), and others. (He’s also behind […]

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Nike Fixed the Stanton Street Soccer Field

In something of a great moment for corporate-public partnerships, Nike is in the process of repairing the deteriorated soccer field (or “pitch,” which is what you call the field if you say “football”) in Sara D. Roosevelt Park, which the company originally paid for back in 2006. Bowery Boogie reports that new turf has been […]

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The Lower East Side Used To Look Like A Movie Set of Hell

A photographer named Steve Butcher who has lived in the Lower East Side for more than 30 years shared a treasure trove of vintage photos of the neighborhood with Bowery Boogie. The color photos are from between 1980 and 1985, and the black-and-whites are from 1996. It’s of course old news that the Lower East […]

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I Used An NYPD Firearms Training Simulator and Learned I Should Be A Cop

Normally, community council meetings are intended to be opportunities for officers and civilians to meet face-to-face and discuss issues in the precinct, but on Wednesday May 20, the Lower East Side’s 7th Precinct hosted a special session, inviting the community to try out an NYPD firearms tactics training simulator. I was intrigued, because it seemed […]

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