Gracie Mansion Gallery site

The East Village of the 1980s was a genuine epicenter — an anarchic, bohemian enclave where art galleries multiplied on punk rock blocks, and the prevailing attitude was reinvention at all costs. Films like Downtown 81, Slaves of New York, Basquiat, and I Shot Andy Warhol have preserved its mythology, but the galleries that defined the scene are long gone.

One of the most important was Gracie Mansion Gallery on St. Mark’s Place. Born Anne Mayhew-Young, the dealer renamed herself Gracie Mansion — a wry nod to New York City’s official mayoral residence. Her gallery took shape gradually: first as the Loo Division (staged in her bathroom), then in various apartments, before finally settling on St. Mark’s.

Mansion’s entry into the art world was characteristically inventive. Unable to interest established galleries in her work or her friends’, she staged the “Limo Show” — renting a limousine, parking it at Spring and West Broadway in SoHo with artists Buster Cleveland and Sur, dressing as tourists, and serving champagne to passersby while pitching the work. From there, she mounted the exhibitions that came to define East Village art.

The gallery operated at multiple addresses over the years, including 337 East 10th Street, before moving to 532 Broadway in 1987.

Location: 15 St. Mark’s Place, New York, NY 10003