Planet Ludlow is a fascinating little documentary that explores the shops, galleries and work that the people on Ludlow street were doing in 1995. The LES still looks like it did in the eighties but the narrator, Ronnie DeMonarco, informs us that this is right at the time that the neighborhood got the drugs and crime down to a manageable level and in his words, turned it into “a little paradise.”
The filmmaker Corey Shaff walks around the neighborhood interviewing men on the street, drops by a blacksmith’s shop and pops into the legendary alleged gallery. One of the artists that showed at Alleged was Harmony Korine and while he doesn’t show up in the video, skateboarder Harold Hunter does. Hunter’s most famous work outside of skateboarding was playing a supporting role in Kids which was scripted by Korine. Check out the embed above to get a look at the time before the LES was overrun with yuppies boozing and brunching.
(Image: Corey Shaff)
