Now and then, I think about a certain character from the old East Village. With her folding table and anti-pornography signs, she was vibrant and angry, intimidating and exciting. Her voice and the cadence she used to call out her mantra, "Sign the petition," has stayed in people's psyches over the years. Now and then, some of us find ourselves still saying it, in our heads, or out loud to friends, spontaneously, as if we are conjuring old ghosts: "SIGN the pe-ti-SHUN!"
Who was that woman? Awhile ago, I asked the Hive Mind on Facebook and the Hive Mind answered.
Valerie Harper in Times Square
Her name was Page and she was a feminist against pornography. People's memories of her go back to the early 1990s, possibly the 1980s.
A regular at Astor Place, she was known for her graphic posters, including the infamous Hustler meat grinder cover, and her scare tactics. Laura recalled, "One of my friends once asked her where the money went and she snapped and said. 'Go away, you doe-eyed bimbo, go home and get your beating......Sign the PETition!'"
Danielle remembered: "Once I heard her SCREAM at a male passerby, 'Go home and beat your damned wife!'"
Jessica worked for her, briefly. She recalls: "she had an ad in the Voice. she said she was going to pay $8 an hour. she had to train me to yell right. i couldn't do it. i wasn't loud enough or mean enough."
Eventually, Page turned her efforts to the animal world. "I’m through with women," she told The Observer in 1998. "I’m through with those ding-dongs! They dress like whores because they are whores!"
She was still around in 2004 when Wilson wrote an article about her in The Villager saying, "You think you’re just going to sign something in support of animal rights, but then she tells you that the 'sign-up' fee to join her organization is $7 (which is enough to cover a pack of cigarettes, which she then promptly purchases at St. Mark’s and Third once she’s suckered her first victim of the day)."
Sometime in the mid-2000s, Page vanished from New York. Signs point to San Francisco where I hope she is still standing on a corner somewhere, calling "SIGN the pe-ti-SHUN" for women or for kittens, for something, for anything. She made the neighborhood more interesting and we're missing that--now more than ever.
Somehow, I don't think the new shiny Astor Place would permit her--especially now that it will be overrun with Twits.
UPDATE: Photographer Richard Greene got this rare shot of Page and her anti-porn table at Broadway and 8th Street in 1989:
©richardgreene 2015
NewYork Today: Looking for something fun to do in New York right now? Our list of things to do in NYC today has everything from free concerts to cultural events and more.
Đăng ký:
Đăng Nhận xét (Atom)
Bài đăng phổ biến
-
One reason we're fighting to keep Cafe Edison in its long-time home is because there is simply nothing else like that space. The walls,...
-
Reader Cat McGuire sends in pics of something new moving to Hell's Kitchen at 46th Street and 9th Avenue. It's a Panda Express -- a...
-
VANISHED On the last weekend of the Chelsea Antiques Garage , before its 1920s-era garage is demolished for a towering luxury hotel, the moo...
-
VANISHED By now, most of you know that Rodeo Bar was closing. It shuttered yesterday, after nearly 30 years on 3rd Avenue. In a farewell pro...
-
VANISHED S&G Gross pawnbrokers has been in New York City for over a century. Their building on 8th Avenue and 34th Street is an antique ...
-
Barnes & Noble is removing its stores from Queens , including a location in Forest Hills that preservationists tried to save . It's ...
-
VANISHED As I reported last week, the restaurant 69 Bayard closed in Chinatown this weekend. I went in for a final meal--and also a first. T...
-
St. Mark's Bookshop is having a "Saved By the Book" auction to help benefit the store as it prepares to move to a new location...
-
For a while, I've had a thing for the Elpine drinks stand in Times Square. Long gone from its spot on 46th Street and 7th Avenue, it ap...
-
I've been avoiding this one, because I can't bear to face the possibility that we will lose La Taza de Oro , a warm and lovely Puert...
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét