The Downtown Pop Underground

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Best known for his Pop Art silkscreened work, Andy Warhol was a key connector figure who circulated not only through uptown art circles, but also within the underground film, poetry, theater, and music scenes. [more]

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Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke was a resident of the Chelsea Hotel, where became friends with Shirley Clarke; during her time in the Chelsea, Patti Smith sometimes lurked by his door hoping to get a glimpse of him. [more]

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After his career as a couturier fizzled, Charles James resided in the Chelsea Hotel—where a young Lisa Jane Persky worked as his assistant. [more]

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Harry Smith is perhaps best known for compiling 1952’s Anthology of American Folk Music, though he was also a notable underground filmmaker, occultist, and world-class eccentric. [more]

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An American Family introduced audiences to the first openly gay man on television, Lance Loud, who had forged links with the downtown underground in the mid-1960s after striking up a long-distance friendship with Andy Warhol via mail and telephone. [more]

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Lisa Jane Persky first met Harry Koutoukas in 1965, when she was about ten years old and her family moved into 87 Christopher Street; by 1973, Koutoukas had cast Persky in her New York stage debut at La MaMa, which was followed by a role in Tom Eyen’s Women Behind Bars opposite Divine in 1976, the same year she became a founding staffer for the New York Rocker and shot Debbie Harry's first cover photo. [more]

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Film director Michel Auder married Warhol superstar Viva, who starred in Agnès Varda’s film Lion’s Love with Shirley Clarke; while they all lived in the Chelsea Hotel, Clarke successfully encouraged them to become video-makers like herself. [more]

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Soon after moving to New York City, Patti Smith met photographer Robert Mapplethorpe—who shared a room with her in the Chelsea Hotel and later shot the iconic cover photo for her debut album, Horses; along the way she appeared in Off-Off-Broadway shows (at La MaMa and elsewhere) and performed poetry in various downtown locations. [more]

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Photographer Robert Mapplethorpe and Patti Smith became inseparable after meeting each other in the late 1960s, and could be seen sipping Cokes at Max’s Kansas City when they were living together at the Chelsea Hotel; in 1975, Mapplethorpe shot the iconic cover photo for Smith's Horses album. [more]

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Shirley Clarke began as a dancer before becoming a headstrong filmmaker who directed The Connection and The Cool World; by the late 1960s she had largely abandoned the film world to become a video pioneer, forming the Tee Pee Video Space Troupe with her daughter Wendy Clarke. [more]

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When he was part of the Warhol crowd, Soren Agenoux wrote a twisted version of A Christmas Carol that debuted at Caffe Cino in 1966 and later could be seen in the reality television series An American Family as Lance Loud’s roommate in the Chelsea Hotel. [more]

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Chelsea Hotel co-owner and manager Stanley Bard filled its lobby with art created by those who couldn’t pay for their rooms (Bard not only accepted artwork in lieu of rent money, he also charged artists lower rent than other professionals). [more]

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Warhol superstar Viva first met Shirley Clarke when they worked together on Agnès Varda’s film Lion’s Love, and Viva appeared in several of Andy’s films, including the controversial Blue Movie (she happened to be on the phone with him when Valerie Solanas shot him at the Factory). [more]

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Wendy Clarke is the daughter of Shirley Clarke, and together they began experimenting with video in the late 1960s—forming the Tee Pee Video Space Troupe and collaborating with other pioneering video artists, such as the Videofreex. [more]