Yeah Clayton’s big spread in The New York Times! It was a joy to see Clayton Patterson on the front page of the Arts Section of The New York Times this week. I met Clayton back in the ’90′s when I did a story on him for New York Press and dubbed him ‘The Mayor of the Lower East Side.’ He introduced me to Daphne Hellman and a host of other interesting characters (Vali Myers in the Chelsea Hotel?) and some who were downright dangerous. Clayton has a remarkably neutral view on the world that does not differentiate between saints and sinners, gang bangers or Rabbis.
John Strausbaugh does a great job in capturing Clayton for the NYTimes piece. Clayton the obsessive archivist, the chronicler, the Weegee of his time. And theNYTimes does us all a public service by chronicling the photos from Clayton’s exhibition, along with Clayton’s exhaustive knowledge of history and culture of the lower east side. Clayton loves the street and all the people who walk on it. That’s what makes his work so important.
I lost touch with Clayton over the years and we re-c0connected on Facebook a few months ago. He and Elsa have lived in the same cramped and sprawling walk-up on Essex Street forever.
“I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was capturing the last of the wild, free, outlaw, Utopian, visionary spirit of the Lower East Side,” he said recently.
- From Clayton Patterson, The Lower East Side, Before It Boomed, New York Times, Sept. 24, 2009.
- On Homelessness, Street Style and Drugs - Clayton Paterson, a photographer, discusses history of the Lower East Side, New York Times multi-media presentation.
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Hyatt Hell - What the hell is Hyatt doing standing up to Governors, Unions, transportation workers, customers – basically telling them to go to hell, they’ll fire whoever they want, damn the brand or any loyal customer base? Did management possibly envision these actions would cost the company so dearly? Sometimes they best long-term offense is near-term acquiescence. Belligerence with the government, the media, your employees is not an effective PR strategy, unless you’re an oil company and you have unlimited funds to mitigate liabilities.
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I had a bit of a tussle this week with Joe Ciarallo at PRNewser. He maligned a struggling PR who bravely stood up to a bully reporter and I called him on it. See PR Newser Blames Victim in Mugging by Journo. Ciarello’s PR cred was offended, and he accused me of snide editorializing by…snide editorializing, which, I thought, was snide. We can go on but PRNewser is not significant enough to meddle about. In the height of Hyatt Hell (above) Ciarallo contacted a reporter who told him that Hyatt PR was not taking his calls. That was his story. Wow.
