Looking for Photos of Early New York Conventions and Fandom

[Davenport]

Here is that wonderful photo, photoshopped. I hope I have improved it.

There's a companion photo to that con image. It acted weird, part of some flash slideshow, so finally I just did a screengrab and tweaked it in photoshop a bit.

 

[Park]

 

Awesome reading, folks!

 

 

Agreed.

[Davenport]

Enlarged a bit and tweaked to bring up the wall books.

 

Man, I can get lost in this image. Used comics laid out in stacks, no bags or boards, step right up...

 

[MrBedrock]

Enlarged a bit and tweaked to bring up the wall books.

 

Man, I can get lost in this image. Used comics laid out in stacks, no bags or boards, step right up...

 

That is freaking awesome

[Boba]

I guess those are the just the reader copies

[Davenport]

That is freaking awesome

[Davenport]

Anyone wanting a sense of that time period can check out Collecting Comics-A Serious Business-1974

Three pages, anonymous author, some scholastic mag. Clicking each page brings up a huge readable scan. (thumbs u

 

"We enter one of the hotel ballrooms, which is larger than most gyms. The room is packed with tables. The tables are piled with comic books. ..."

 

[That Ron Dude]

Here is the key photo, enlarged and photoshopped.

 

[the blob]

I couldn't find a restaurant that I could afford. Eventually we found the Chock Full O' Nuts. It was just my style.

 

One of the kids in the gang had a tentative link to Mike Kaluta. He phoned Kaluta up and the artist kindly allowed us to come over. We watched him draw a Batman cover which had been laid out by Carmine Infantino. It was fascinating

 

We told Kaluta that we had settled on Chock Full O' Nuts as our restaurant-while-in-New York. He laughed and told us it was a scummy place.

 

New York may have changed but I still like scummy restaurants. Ambiance is created by the people you are with, not by the surroundings.

 

At least up into the 90's Kaluta lived in the neighborhood I grew up. I remember he'd sign a ton of boks for Big Apple Comics on 92 (93?) street, which has since closed (one of the Koch brothers ran it), they always had signed copies of Shadow 1 up on the wall for $5.

[the blob]

Thank you. That's exactly what I am looking for. Also, I was there.

 

One other story about my naivety, and as I said, this is naive coming from a city of 2 million, not coming from the farm.

 

We came into New York, by car, at night, through a tunnel. When we got out of the tunnel we probably made a left towards the Port Authority. Now, this was only seconds into New York City.

 

There, we saw what Johnny Carson once referred to as the Cinderellas of the Sidewalk. They were everywhere, perhaps fifty of them or more, standing on all corners. To be honest, I don't remember the specifics of their dress, but it wasn't like women dressed back home. My mind fills in short skirts, fish net stockings, dyed hair, low cut blouses, purses and sort of a pop culture version of that sort of woman. But really, I don't recall. What I do recall is that I did not recognize them for being women of the street. I thought, "This is New York and they sure do dress differently down here".

 

I was seventeen thinking that. I can't imagine a thirteen year old thinking that way today.

 

There was a pretty decent chance that, upon closer examination, many of them were not, in fact, women. And that is still the case over there (although they've cleaned it up a bit).

[That Ron Dude]

Oh gawd.... until I read your post that had never occurred to me.

 

Kaluta lived in very humble diggs. As I recall, it was a long way up the stairs, more than 3 stories, maybe five. My visit was over forty years ago but I remember him living in one room with a bathroom. His drawing board was old and beautiful and located near the window. He had a mirror in front of the board and he explained that he could get interesting lighting for drawing faces when looking into it.

 

I may be filling in a bit but I remember a mattress, not a bed. The whole place had a beaten up feel. I had never really been in place like it but I was not blind to his situation. He was a young artist trying to establish himself. He had to make some sacrifices. I assumed that in a few years he would have a nice place on Long Island with a lawn and, if he so choose, a pool in the backyard.

 

Though I am not and have never been privy to Mike Kaluta's economic situation, I had no idea how low the page rates were on some of the DC books, back then. Over the years, he showed his promise and became one of the foremost fantasy artists in North America. His originals were in demand. I must assume that he was soon earning decent money.

 

My friendship with Mike Katuta, never a strong one, diminished over the years until we were all but strangers. We had a mutual friend though, who visited his home and told me that he still lived in the same place. I assumed that he got a good deal on the room and that it took care of his needs while allowing him to pay attention to his craft. I think his staying there was kind of neat.

 

I heard that he left the place because the building became part of the general rejuvenation of New York. I have no idea where it was located. Kaluta told us that his home was only a short trip from where we were staying and that the taxi driver took us in circles to jack up the price of taking us there. That means it was near 56th and Broadway.

 

There. My brush with the greats.

 

 

[burntboy]

Here is the key photo, enlarged and photoshopped.

 

 

Curious why this is the KEY photo are you in there??

[That Ron Dude]

I am looking for pictures that show what the conventions looked like before it gained a commercial framework. Back then comic boxes didn't even exist. Most of the photos I see are of specific people, rather than the rooms in general.

 

I don't see myself in photo. I don't recognize anyone there.

[AtlasFan]

When I was 17 I borrowed my brother's car and along with four friends drove from Toronto to New York. This was 1971, pre-Guliani New York. While Toronto was occasionally referred to as "Toronto the Good" New York was the big rotten apple. I had never seen anything like it.

 

Today Steve Martin jokes, "Let's go to Toronto. It's like New York but without all the stuff!" Back then Toronto was Canada's second city, a place where they had just stopped chaining the swings to the supporting bars on Sundays (no joke), primarily anglosaxon where the others were Italian, home of the architectural marvel "The Royal York Hotel" and for most of its life run by Orangemen.

 

New York, both inside and outside of the con hotel, was the strangest thing this poor boy had ever seen. You can watch Midnight Cowboy for New York or Goin' Down the Road for Toronto but you can also look at some of these old shots I took from the internet. This is how I remember the goings on outside the hotel.

 

 

Even back then Toronto had two million people in it. I wasn't hiking in from Iowa. But to me, prostitutes and homosexuals were about as real as pirates. I had never seen a burned out building. A porn film was something that Johnny Carson joked about. Our streets had two lanes, maybe four never six going one way, the black people lived at St.Clair and Bathurst, hippies were just kidding and a really tall building was thirty stories. Also, Toronto stunk, but it stunk like car exhaust. New York stink was unclassifiable.

 

Also, prices were high. We dined, broke fast and brunched at the "Chock Full O' Nuts". I hear that they have been reincarnated as Starbucks.

 

Geeks, which were known as jerks, were me and my friends. Could there have been fifty of us in a high school of 2200? Down in the comic club basement there were 20 of us at a time, once, and it was beyond claustrophobic. The Seuling Con had 500 of us in a room. Goodness (can I say God here?) it was weird.

 

 

You know, I sat through the first season of Big Bang on DVD. The people watching the show have no idea. Those geeks are handsome and witty. They would have all been alpha geeks if they hung out in my crowd. The chick across the hall would have looked like a young Momma Cass and we still would have frozen up asking her for a date.

 

 

Ahh...thats when Times Square was TIMES SQUARE! Not the sanatized tourist trap that it has turned into today...

[the blob]

ok, i just remember the guys up on 92nd saying he lived around there and came by their shop, who knows, maybe he kept the room as a studio space. if he was renting that place back then it was probably rent controlled and he might have been paying $100 a month or something. people NEVER want to give those spaces up, even when they actually live elsewhere.

 

the thing about that New york is that it was cheap. my parents rented a 2000 square foot 4 bedroom apartment on 84th a nd riverside for $260/mo in the late 60's. they bought it then for $8700. yes, $8700. in 2006 the lady who bought the apartment from them in the late 90s sold it for $2.4 million.

[That Ron Dude]

I had no idea the rents had changed that much. I had thought it was always expensive.

 

I had heard about rent control, but when you mention it, it makes sense that Kaluta's small apartment would have been part of that.

[goldust40]

I had no idea the rents had changed that much. I had thought it was always expensive.

 

I had heard about rent control, but when you mention it, it makes sense that Kaluta's small apartment would have been part of that.

 

Went to visit Kaluta in 2010 when I was over for the Javitts show (my friend Joel who edits Tripwire was doing an article about him). He presumably lives in the same apartment as usual, or at the very least a similar one - somewhere in the 90s on the Upper West Side. Very friendly guy.

[Marvelfangirl]

Here is that wonderful photo, photoshopped. I hope I have improved it.

Where's Flee?

[That Ron Dude]

Thanks for the info about Kaluta. Maybe I got it wrong. I do that a lot.

[jpepx78]

Here is that wonderful photo, photoshopped. I hope I have improved it.

speaking of kaluta...he drew the flyer for the 1973 convention pictured here.