Before my lease expired on Irving Place, we went in search of a new and bigger pied-à-terre, one where Sherman would not show such obvious signs of depression and claustrophobia (we did a lot for that cat, including hiring a sitter to sleep with him when we were away for any length of time—trust me, he was worth it). We found a smashing one-bedroom duplex with a loft area that was perfect for an office and TV room, way over in the West Village on Greenwich Street (not to be confused with Greenwich Avenue, which runs on the diagonal across the Village). The Archive, as the building was and is known, is a landmarked 10-story structure, built in 1899, in a style known as Romanesque Revival. It once housed the U.S. Appraiser’s Warehouse (whatever that is) and is in one of the most conspicuously gay areas of the city, at the far west end of Christopher Street. Some of the cutest queers in New York frequented the dives here, and it was not unusual to see cowboys, sailors, muscle men—almost all the Village People—cruising the sidewalks or staggering out of the bars at all hours. Across the street from us, nine stories below, was a particularly raucous venue called Two Potato that hosted ear-splitting revels until four in the morning, and neither the cops nor the building’s high arched windows did anything to cut the noise level. I had thick drapes custom made, but even those didn’t do much to dampen the ruckus.
The Archive was the sort of place where Eurotrash stashed their kids if they could not or did not want to buy them condos. One of my favorite overheard comments from those years was that of a 20-something blonde with a German accent, who said to her friend in the elevator: “My father bought me a Lincoln Town Car. Can you believe it??? A Lincoln Town Car!). There were occasional celebrity sightings, such as Jay McInerney, the hot young (then) author of Bright Lights, Big City, whose fashion-model girlfriend lived in the Archive.
Mr. Landi, by now, was making buckets of money, and we were spending with gleeful abandon. Every weekend it seemed we were in ABC Antiques (formally known as ABC Carpet and Home), an emporium for us upwardly mobile types who would never venture inside an auction house. The Times recently called the place “the store where furniture is theater,” and its owners, enthused the reporter, “captured the mid-80s zeitgeist just as we, the baby boomers, were settling down.”
Well, we weren’t exactly settling down, since that seemed never to be in our blood, but we were buying up what felt like enough stuff to furnish a small casbah: a 19th-century French country armoire that looked like the closet where Mme Bovary might have stowed her clothes; an elegant inlaid table with matching caned chairs, a polished cherry-wood secretary, also 19th century. And a red leather couch, end tables, lamps, a glass coffee table, a queen-size bed, linens, dishes, and on and on and on and on. Where the hell did I ever get the patience to do all this shopping, years before Amazon was a gleam in Jeff Bezos’ eye? All acquired within a couple of months, as I recall. After one of our sprees, we stopped at a neighborhood drugstore to buy Mr. Landi a new toothbrush, and I chided him for choosing a brush with natural bristles that cost a whopping 15 dollars. He fumed. “I will buy any goddamn toothbrush I damn well please.” I don’t blame him.
(Where did all that furniture go, I wonder, over the years? I still have the French country armoire, but that is about the only item remaining from that time. It seems incredibly petty to miss sticks of wood, but still that secretary, as lovingly inlaid as a Renaissance studiolo and now I believe in the possession of the second Mrs. Landi, was such a gorgeous piece of workmanship. Yes, I do miss it.)
When it came to art, our tastes were timid and conservative. This was about five or six years before I started writing for ARTnews, and I knew nothing about galleries or contemporary artists, other than the obvious big and unaffordable names. We played it safe with an Audubon print of a black skimmer, a couple of William Hamilton engravings after Greek myths, and an oil painting I bought in an airport that was a breezy abstraction of Florida beaches and palms. But the one painting I truly loved we found in a gift shop in Boca Raton: it’s a portrait of an unknown adolescent, probably a sketch, by a largely forgotten Irish genre painter named Thomas Moran, and I still find it arresting for its sexual ambiguity and loosely realized surface—it’s the closest I’ll ever come to owning anything by Edouard Manet.
Now that we are both damn near broke again, I look back with astonishment and dismay at the heedless abandon with which we slapped down plastic, never ever thinking sensibly. Like, why not buy a co-op instead of forking over rent every month (though we did eventually buy a house—and should have held on to it). Why not think of art as an investment? Why not open a savings account on your own, Ann, so that you might always have money to fall back on?
So I regret to say I might yet end up in the poorhouse. I just hope the experience will be interesting enough to write about.
Spaghetti al Tonno
Here’s an unusual, easy, and fairly budget-conscious recipe adapted from a website called Food52.com
3 cans of light or white tuna packed in olive oil (I prefer the Genova brand from Italy)
1 large garlic clove, peeled and cut into chunks
olive oil
salt and pepper to taste
capers in brine
1 bunch fresh Italian flat leaf parsley
1 pound spaghetti
whole lemon, zested and juiced
ground red chili flakes to taste
Directions
1. Place a large pot of water to boil, add salt (I used about 1 tablespoon per pound of pasta).
2. In a large nonstick skillet, add the canned tuna (drain most of the oil from the cans first) and break the pieces up a bit.
3. Drizzle about 1/3 cup or more of olive oil into the tuna and add the chopped garlic to the mix.
4. Let this cook on medium low heat until you start to smell the aroma of the garlic and the tuna is tender and sizzling a bit. Remove from heat and set aside (remove the garlic from the mix and discard.)
5. When the water comes to a full boil, add the spaghetti and stir immediately so they do not stick. Continue to cook and stir until the pasta is “al dente.”
6. Reserve some of the cooking water (in a bowl) and set aside. Drain the pasta and set aside with a light drizzle of olive oil to prevent sticking.
7. Return the large skillet with the cooked tuna mixture back to medium heat; add the drained cooked spaghetti and mix well as it comes to heat.
8. Heat this mixture slowly, stirring often while adding a bit of the cooking pasta water to create a sauce that will coat the pasta well. Once this is incorporated remove from the heat and add to your taste preference, the capers, lemon juice, lemon zest, large bunch of freshly chopped parsley leaves and the chili flakes to taste.
9. Serve with grated Parmesan on the side. Some say this is a no-no for fish sauces, but I say, Phooey. Eat what you like.
It's such a pleasure to read your Substack, Ann. I'm curious if you enjoy (with the obvious artistic interest and spending enthusiasm history) reading about the Gilded age?
ABC nothing Lille it !!
Sounds familiar!♥️ Irene