I believe the two summers I worked there were in 1961 and 1962, but I’m not certain.

Have you thought about writing a book? Sounds to me like you have had a very interesting life so far.

When I would travel on assignment(mostly for annual report/ Corporate work) I would lock the door between the two halves of the loft. There were what we called Police Locks with bars diagonalling down into little cups sunk in the hardwood floor. The steps up to the roof were cluttered with old props. In the back of the place was a living room, full bath, kitchenet and, forward toward the studio part,
a bedroom.

When I first moved in, having answered a classified advert by
(I think it was Harpers) writer Willie Morris, I found graffiti on the hardwood floors under the carpeting I was quick to throw out.

For what its worth, I had an Omega D2 enlarger with several
lenses and a cold light glass which was never used. I used
mostly Poly Contrast Kodak paper and would stay up late at night printing the days work, listening to WOR’s Long John
Nevil who was sponsored by Mt. Airy Lodge… or maybe it was
M.A.spring water.

I was in that building for 14 years and would have stayed on
another couple decades, had they not torn it down. Once, amidst demolition, I walked up crumbling, nearly collapsed stairs,

….past where the Gibson’s bakery used to be,

….past the apartment of Thelma LaHayne, a little lady from Laport Indiana who’d come to NYC to “be and artist”…and realized her dream in oils sold in the Caribbean, on Saint Martin in tourist season.

…and the apartment of a woman named Ania who was allergetic
and not often in a happy mood. Once I had to completely re-do her ceiling when my bathtub overflowed.
Probably we did not get along well because her rental followed some terrific Pan Am stewardesses clicking around their flat in stiletto heels at 3:00am. Who could mind that?

Out my front windows, one could clearly see a shadowy line if Night Ladies sitting on Bickford’s plastic stools, spin- ning around, one after the other in perfect sync, following with their eyes the shiny cars streaming east on 28th Street

My starting rent for the entire floor was $125 per month and at the end I think it had grown to $325. Every time there was a raise, I would go down and speak to Noel or Myron or their dad Philip… and tell them I was mostly a Cooper Union / SVA adjunct teacher… and could they please be a bit more reasonable? In return for some of my recent “Unusual Occupations of N.Y.” calendars, they always knocked off at least $40. Now that’s the kind of landlord that doesn’t exist any longer: a somewhat reticent Artist’s Friend!

Anyway, after I moved my studio to the West Side, I went back one day and, from the sidewalk beside a pocket park the
“sliver building” architects were obliged to create…
high up on the wall of the Con Edison station, at the third story level, calcium stains from my darkroom sink were dribbling downward, still clearly visible.

Over the Belmore was the best place I have ever lived. At
72, looking back, (especially, looking back from suberban New Jersey) I realize how lucky I was to be right in the middle of the then Photo District and to have landed that place with
through a simple NYTimes classified ad.

Question: What floor was Mr. Studly’s studio when you were there… and over what part of the building…. and what years? I would like to learn more… if you have both time
and inclination.

Thanks for the memories. George Haling a4e40@yahoo.com