Looking for Photos of Early New York Conventions and Fandom

[burntboy]

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.

 

 

Some excellent pics there and an interesting read... (thumbs u

 

We lived across the river in a suburb of Newark (East Orange and Orange, NJ).

 

MY Mom would occasionally take me over to times square in the afternoon/night(via two buses) for an evening stroll and some Pizza. Used to go with my dad on occasion (same buses, neither parent ever drove a car in their lives) to see a movie. this was back in the mid-late 50's and while I was fascinated by the seediness of 42d street, the Hookers and Porn theaters had not taken over yet.

 

I can remember seeing "1984" and Hammer's "The curse of Frankenstein" among others (obviously, I got to choose the films...)

[Scrooge]

Here's a 1969 NY Comic Art Con photo with a legend of who's in it. HERE

 

The photo itself (without the legend) is massive, so I won't post it. Just the link.

http://www.fantucchio.com/_images/1969-ny-comic-art-convention-luncheon-4764x2790px.jpg

 

What a fantastic picture combining early fandom and well-established artists...

 

+1 Yes, thank you for posting this link.

[Ringfinger]

Great pics!

[That Ron Dude]

No, I didn't know that the whole thing hadn't fallen into social decay. When I went to the con in 1971 I came in a block from the bus station. I stayed at a hotel on 46th and walked to the convention at 33rd.

 

Everything I saw was hideous. People were handing out pamphlets advertising oral (word I can't say here) for five dollars. Now mind you a Journey into Mystery #83 could be had for $3.50 back then but FIVE DOLLARS. My God!! That's what it was like. I remember a kid selling marijuana standing at the top of the subway stairs. The marijuana was being displayed as plainly as the street vendors were displaying hot dogs. It might have all been less of a shock had I been older and more worldly but at the time I was a still a city boy from the tenth largest city in North America.

 

 

[Ringfinger]

I would love to see a side by side comparison of what is in those buildings now.

[Boba]

My 1st con was at the Statler Hilton in New York long gone now.

Great stuff here

[the blob]

No, I didn't know that the whole thing hadn't fallen into social decay. When I went to the con in 1971 I came in a block from the bus station. I stayed at a hotel on 46th and walked to the convention at 33rd.

 

Everything I saw was hideous. People were handing out pamphlets advertising oral (word I can't say here) for five dollars. Now mind you a Journey into Mystery #83 could be had for $3.50 back then but FIVE DOLLARS. My God!! That's what it was like. I remember a kid selling marijuana standing at the top of the subway stairs. The marijuana was being displayed as plainly as the street vendors were displaying hot dogs. It might have all been less of a shock had I been older and more worldly but at the time I was a still a city boy from the tenth largest city in North America.

 

 

I grew up 40-45 blocks north of there (a little bit north of where Charles Bronson lived in Deathwish). While I cannot say it was something out of Leave it to Beaver, it was very different than the times Square/Hell's Kitchen area you are remembering. But hey, it's New York and things were pretty liberal, so there were places to get weed if you needed and there were a couple of junkie prostitutes around and about, though no porn theatres and things were a bit less out in the open in general. White collar types with kids actually lived up there.

 

The irony is, of course, starting at about age 5 or 6 I was pretty much allowed to roam around and about outside unsupervised. The area is 20X safer now than 35 years ago and nobody would let their kid do that now.

[nmtg9]

Loving these stories of NEw York in the sixties and seventies.

 

I grew up listening to stories from my Mam who lived there in the sixties.

 

Then I grew up watching g films like the Warriors, Taxi Driver and Mean Streets loving them but knowing of course it wasnt like that really.

 

These stories bring it to life, keep 'em coming.

[That Ron Dude]

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.

[goldust40]

Loving these stories of NEw York in the sixties and seventies.

 

I grew up listening to stories from my Mam who lived there in the sixties.

 

Then I grew up watching g films like the Warriors, Taxi Driver and Mean Streets loving them but knowing of course it wasnt like that really.

 

These stories bring it to life, keep 'em coming.

 

I echo this sentiment. I was always fascinated with NYC when I was growing up, not least because of all the T.V. shows and movies that were based there.

 

I first visited NYC in the late '70s, and I remember parts of the downtown area and (predictably) Times Square to be bizarre, edgy and way more seedy than London (which was also very seedy back in the '70s). It was almost as I imagined it would be - to be fair a lot of midtown and uptown Manhattan was very nice (the contrasts between areas was an eye-opener).

 

I've been back many times, and the changes that have occurred in the ensuing decades are obviously very noticeable. But not all areas of NYC have been subject to wholesale change...

[VintageComics]

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

 

So true!

 

Ron, some awesome posts in the this by yourself and many others.

 

Awesome reading, folks!

 

[zosocane]

My 1st con was at the Statler Hilton in New York long gone now.

Great stuff here

 

That was my first comic con too! June 1979, right? I still remember walking in, being in a large ballroom (I was 10 years old), and seeing nothing but endless tables of dealers peddling comic books. No baseball cards, toys, or any distractions -- just tables of comics everywhere. I still have many books in my collection that I purchased that day. It was also around the time of the American Airlines DC-10 crash in Chicago (the one where the engine fell off the wing mount). I think it happened that same weekend.

[jpepx78]

I spent this afternoon looking for photos of early fandom, particularly early New York fandom. I didn't have a lot of success on line

I did find old pictures of professional artists, writers, BNFs and Phil Seuling but almost no pictures of dealers rooms before comic boxes had been invented, rooms where panels were being held, the inside of the old New York Hilton where the Seuling cons were held and comic fans in their hotel rooms.

In short, I am trying to get photos that give a feeling of fandom at the time, rather than shots of specific people.

Any leads...

Any ideas...

anyone else got pictures? how about these pictures?

seuling convention at the commodore hotel in 1973. that room looks packed!

comics were taped or pinned to a board! i can see a little lulu & capt marvel books.

 

comic convention at the biltmore new york in 1974 here

 

5 batches of photos from san diego comic-con in 1974 here

 

houstoncon 1971 & 1979 (bottom of page) in color here ! there are also eyewitness accounts from people who were there.

 

was this the bad part of nyc? here's a newsstand @ 42nd ave & 8th next to the times theater and a bar in 1954.

it doesn't look busy for new york. i wonder if there were any comics at the stand?

 

[lizards2]

Man - I can almost smell that

 

 

 

[Ringfinger]

Great pics!

[That Ron Dude]

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.

[TheWatcher]

It was also around the time of the American Airlines DC-10 crash in Chicago (the one where the engine fell off the wing mount). I think it happened that same weekend.

 

Flight 191

[That Ron Dude]

I have looked. I have gotten what I need. I have enough and far more of exactly what I wanted than I thought I would get. I will be back but from now on it will be for amusement, not out of necessity.

 

My thanks.

[Whizzer]

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.

 

 

This post reminds me of Soho in London. Back in the day it was grimy and full of hookers too. It had a great atmosphere and ambience as well as an air of danger. Today it's still got the sex shops and gay bars but has been almost completely sanitized compared to how it used to be.

 

I guess it's safer than it was, which is obviously a good thing, but I hate how everything is so homogenized these days

 

[That Ron Dude]

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