Madonna, Lower East Side 1982
From Rock Paper Photo:
Madonna suggested a first meeting with Richard Corman at her apartment in Alphabet City on New York’s Lower East Side. As recalls that day, “I had to call her from a phone booth across the street “because the neighborhood was full of drug dealers, and they didn’t let people just walk in and out. There was a group of kids outside the building, on the stoop, in the hallways, and when I said I was there for Madonna the seas parted.
“I looked up the staircase, and I saw this girl leaning over the edge of the banister, and even from three stories below I could see these catlike eyes just looking down. I knew at that moment that she had something special -- I really did. She had her best friend and neighbor, Martin, with her -- he later died of AIDS—and we sat and talked. She served me a cup of coffee on a silver tray with three pieces of Bazooka bubblegum.”
Bazooka bubble gum and a cup of coffee sound really good to me right now.
ReplyDeleteNever cared for her music, except a couple of songs, but I always love looking at photos of her. She is absolutely beautiful.
I'll admit it's a fascinating time period especially told through those photos. It's easy to romanticize bumping into Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat or even a gritty Madonna. Although Madonna is obviously posing, she seems much less self-conscious, real and also self-assured - almost naive in these photos. Today she seems hyper self-conscious in an effort to cover up insecurity and plastic (note her fake British accent.)
ReplyDeleteInteresting to also note her commanding presence in the neighborhood, makes you wonder if "star power" is actually a real thing that someone naturally possesses. You get a sense of her ambition.
good photo. she has little talent, the real artist was her brother christopher. he took over & kept her going. i cant handle listening to her voice. i usually shut down the volume, watch the videos. she has the best designers, & stage sets. she photographs very well.
ReplyDeleteI notice the hair here and I think, there's a real person, a human body here, that grows hair, as we all do, (and nails, that break, split, get tough, whatever). NYC lies somewhere between dreams, ambition, celebrity and those bodily realities.
ReplyDeleteLove this photo and article. Thank you! Reminds us all of the person we may have forgotten we once were. Gritty, fierce and fearless was the only acceptable way to be then. It was a required attribute.
ReplyDelete..i used to have that same studded belt she's wearing..got it at bleeker bob's..it's since been passed down to my youngest daughter...lol
ReplyDeleteI cannot stand her music. But I adore looking at these photographs. Photos of early Madonna before she hit the big time. The pics captured not only her, but a time in NYC before 1984.
ReplyDeleteLove this time period in Madonna's life in NYC this was before she recorded her first album and before she was well known only two years from then she would be the most famous woman in pop culture!!!
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