On why he hasn’t published a book of his work until now:
A lot of people wanted me to do a book through the years, but I didn’t want to do a book, because doing a book, as you know, takes time. And I really wanted to kind of hop, skip, and jump until I couldn’t hop and skip and jump anymore. We’re talking about over 60 years…
On his early days in New York, when people carried books in their hands, not camera phones.
My older brother lived in the West Village at MacDougal and Bleecker. And my parents would let me come down on the Greyhound bus from the Adirondack Mountains to visit him way in the early ’60s, when it was beatniks and we had the Tin Angel and the Bitter End and the Gaslight, and all those places. My brother would drag me to these places, so when I was ready to come to New York, I knew the Village. And in those times, in the early ’60s, people would always carry around books in their hands, and there would be poetry readings and folk music, and low-key stuff in these little cafes, you know. Community! No phones, nothing, People had real-time conversations, and they talked about politics and this and that, whatever, you know. So that was really great.
On meeting Andy Warhol…
I used to hang around in ’68 or ’69 at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. I love that place, it’s very spiritual, it has a vibe that’s forever. At that time, Central Park was a great place because there were no boundaries. People used to come and parade around Bethesda Fountain, peacock-style, like, you know, Kings Road, in their boots and their crushed velvet and their black leather pants. It wasn’t what you wore, it was how you wore it. You know, there wasn’t a lot of Balenciaga labels and that stuff, right, right? I ran into Ingrid Superstar, one of the Andy Warhol superstars, literally bumped into each other. And she said, I want you to meet somebody. So she dragged me by the hand down to 32 Union Square, and I met Andy Warhol. Andy was still doing little movies. you know, cinema verité, underground movies. I started getting to know the Andy Warhol superstars, Candy Darling, Holly Woodlawn, Jackie Curtis, Jane County, Taylor Mead, Sylvia Miles. It just happened. I just rolled with it, and that was the magic of my photography. I was never a paparazzi. I did journalism, but I considered myself more a participant in the community that I was passionate about and loved. I did the Andy Warhol superstars, I did the first women’s rights march, I did gay liberation. All that stuff, because I was a participant. It was important to me to be a part of it, because I believed in it.
