Keith Haring's New York
Keith Haring arrived in New York from Reading, Pennsylvania in 1978, a nineteen-year-old art student with a backpack and a head full of ideas. By the time AIDS took him in February 1990, he had transformed the city’s visual landscape — covering subway stations, hospital walls, public pools, nightclub dance floors, and anything else that would hold still long enough. Twelve years. Not a bad run.
What Haring left behind is scattered across all five boroughs: permanent murals in public hospitals and community centers, a bronze altar piece in the world’s largest cathedral, and the ghosts of nightclubs that launched an entire generation of artists.
1. Crack is Wack Mural
128th Street and 2nd Avenue
There are a few places in New York where you can feel like you’ve transported back in time for just a second — when Keith Haring was still ruling New York wall space. The Carmine Pool and LGBT Center murals are more tucked away, but the Crack is Wack mural confronts you head-on, punching you in the face with orange and black as you’re reentering the city from an upstate excursion through Upper Manhattan.
Haring painted this on the back of a handball court wall in 1986 as a reaction to the raging crack-cocaine epidemic. Although we love to glamorize the “creativity and downtown scene” of the 80s, this piece reminds us that the city was kind of a war zone, with crime and drugs running rampant around the bombed-out Lower East Side. The mural was painted illegally, which is ironic considering the city’s Department of Parks and Recreation was behind its restoration and protection in 2007. Its placement on a public handball court lets you feel for a minute what it was like to live in New York back then.
2. Carmine Pool Mural
1 Clarkson Street
A total contrast from the sexually charged mural at the LGBT Community Center, Haring painted this aqua-themed piece in 1987 for the public pool. Classic Haring dudes dance with dolphins, mermen swim about over blue and yellow blobs. (I’d like to think he was keeping it real, and painted in the pee that flows so freely in public pools filled with children.)
The mural was restored in 1997 by the Haring Foundation. You can get a look when walking by through the fence, but don’t linger too long or you’ll look like a creep spying on children.
3. Once Upon a Time — LGBT Community Center
208 West 13th Street
One of Haring’s final goodbyes to New York was perhaps his most personal. Painted in 1989, just nine months before his death, the black and white mural snakes around what was then the bathroom of The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center. Its location was chosen purposefully to reflect the sexual cruising of the gay community in the 1980s — and to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
By 1989, HIV and AIDS had taken hold of Haring and much of his community, turning him into an outspoken activist advocating for safe sex. But despite his illness, Haring still celebrated sex. His signature bold-lined figures contort in sexual delight, with a multitude of penises, orifices and bodily fluids rendered in his unmistakable style. The massive piece reeks of orgasmic pleasure, but its title — Once Upon a Time — leaves a melancholy connotation, looking back to the days of sexual “freedom” before the AIDS epidemic devastated New York.
The space has since been converted into a meeting room, but the mural still holds its weight regardless of function, and has been lovingly restored by The Center. Go see it.
4. The Life of Christ — Cathedral of St. John the Divine
1047 Amsterdam Avenue
When the late great Keith Haring finally succumbed to feeling the sickness of HIV, he made one last artwork. In January of 1990, just one month before his death, he created this piece in an unlikely subject for him — religion. The massive bronze 5-by-8-foot triptych altar piece is finished in white gold leaf and shows scenes from the life of Christ in classic Haring figures. It weighs a hefty 600 pounds and is an edition of 9 with 2 APs (others are in museums).
His iconic baby figures become an infant Christ held in a series of arms. But instead of the usual Birth of Christ serenity, Haring’s piece feels angry — reminding me of the violence in Jan Van Eyck’s “Last Judgement” — with the witnesses seeming to move with flailing arms and clenched fists. This aggressive feel is completely understandable, coming from the last moments of desperation before Haring knew HIV/AIDS would get the better of him. In that, the piece is very, very sad.
Saint John the Divine itself is a fitting venue. It is the largest cathedral in the world (St. Peter’s Basilica is bigger but technically not a cathedral), built in the early 1900s, known for its interfaith tradition and acceptance, its dedication to art, and its non-religious community programming — all the makings of the perfect home for Haring’s last piece.
5. Pop Shop
292 Lafayette Street
I was lucky enough to be in New York before Keith Haring’s all-encompassing Pop Shop closed. It was open during a time before museum shops had much beyond t-shirts and postcards — a place to take home a little piece of Haring if you were one of the zillions of fans who couldn’t afford an original. Opened in 1986 as an extension of his artwork, the white space had Haring murals covering every surface — pillars, walls, ceiling, all painted by the artist himself — plus a bunch of Haring-character goodies to take home. The floor was once painted too, but was replaced in 1996. On a super cool block of Lafayette, I remember buying Haring pins in between going to Liquid Sky then X-Girl, Kim Gordon’s girly line located in X-Large’s basement.
The Pop Shop closed in 2005 when the lease came up. The shop rarely turned a profit, and the Keith Haring Foundation (which ran it after Haring’s death) decided the impending rent hike just didn’t make sense. Haring opened the shop to make his work accessible to everyone in a time when it wasn’t, but with the commercialized world we live in now, it’s easy to get pretty much anything emblazoned with one of his radiant babies. Only the ceiling mural survived the closure — the Foundation saved it in pieces and put it in storage. But it didn’t stay there.
6. Pop Shop Ceiling — New York Historical Society
170 Central Park West
The famed doodley ceiling from Keith Haring’s Pop Shop lives! After a huge renovation in 2011, the New York Historical Society acquired the ceiling and installed it over the museum’s visitor desk. What an awesome way to show off an awesome piece of New York history. Goodies from the New York and Tokyo Pop Shops are also on a rotating display in the Luce Center on the 5th floor. The museum also hosted the Keith Haring All-Over installation, which featured objects Haring turned into art — painted leather jackets, Grace Jones costumes, and the pink jacket Madonna wore at Haring’s first “Party of Life” birthday celebration in 1984.
7. Two Dancing Figures
17 State Street
I do love Lower Manhattan. I love wandering around and looking up at the ornate architecture like a tourist, reading the placards indicating where the water’s edge used to be, and the high concentration of public art packed into such a small area. Down near the Staten Island Ferry terminal, Keith Haring’s bright red and yellow Two Dancing Figures stand arm in arm, starting their own kick line, just across from the idling double-decker tourist buses. The piece is one of an edition of three, created by Haring in 1989, and appears here as part of the Lever House Collection. Pure joy, frozen in painted steel.
8. Woodhull Hospital Mural
760 Broadway, Brooklyn
What the hell is a 700-foot-long Keith Haring mural doing in Woodhull Hospital? Believe it or not, the city’s Health and Hospitals Corporation once set aside a percentage of funds to buy emerging art to be hung in hospitals. Saved up in the 1960s and 1970s, they began splurging on works and murals, including this piece made by Haring over three days in 1986.
I’ve had my own experience with Woodhull — it is a typical underfunded public hospital in the middle of where Bushwick and Bed-Stuy meet. But that’s what makes this Haring piece even more special. Many private hospitals around the country boast incredible art collections, but Woodhull is one of the only public hospitals with artworks by modern masters — 700 individual works in total. The enormous, colorful Haring mural was cleaned and restored in 2007. Worth the trip to Brooklyn.
9. Houston Bowery Wall
Houston Street and Bowery
In 1982, Keith Haring put this large slab of concrete wall into the history books when he painted a 30-foot mural on it, choosing the spot because it links SoHo to the Lower East Side. The wall was later used for advertising until gallerist Jeffrey Deitch approached its owner, the late Tony Goldman, to use it for large-scale temporary murals. The wall has since become a permanent, rotating art installation featuring works by Os Gemeos, Kenny Scharf, Shepard Fairey and other contemporary artists. Goldman and Deitch brought the same idea to Miami’s Wynwood Walls — a project that literally helped change a rough area into a destination. Haring’s original mural is long gone, but this spot remains one of the most important pieces of real estate in New York street art, and it started with him.
10. The Downtown Scene: Club 57, Mudd Club, Danceteria, and the Palladium
You can’t understand Haring without understanding the downtown nightlife scene that made him. Before the galleries came calling, Haring was a fixture in a constellation of clubs where art, music, drugs, and ambition collided nightly. None of these venues survive, but the buildings mostly do, and the stories are worth the walk.
Club 57 — 57 St. Marks Place. Located in the basement of the Holy Cross Polish National Church, this was ground zero. The incredible Ann Magnuson was hired to promote the new DIY club, which became the hangout of Madonna, Joey Arias, Fab Five Freddy, Kenny Scharf, The B-52s, Basquiat, and Haring, who curated shows here. Theme parties, day-glo, Monster Movies, and black lights. Haring performed his neo-dada poems inside of a giant television and exhibited Black Light shows combined with dancing, drugs, and orgiastic sex. Magnuson described the clientele as “suburban refugees who had run away from home to find a new family…who liked the things we liked — Devo, Duchamp, and William S. Burroughs — and (more important) hated the things we hated — disco, Diane von Furstenberg, and The Waltons.” As the artist kids got more popular, they moved on to more expensive venues, and Club 57 closed in 1983.
Mudd Club — 77 White Street. Everyone who became someone hung out at Tribeca’s Mudd Club from 1978 until 1983. The loft was owned by Ross Bleckner, the fourth floor was a gallery curated by Keith Haring, and the whole place epitomized the polar opposite of Studio 54’s glitz. Basquiat, Madonna (when they were dating), Debbie Harry, Klaus Nomi, David Byrne, Ginsberg, Burroughs, and Warhol all came through. Now it is, inevitably, a “triple-mint condominium building.”
Danceteria — 30 West 21st Street. Like most 1980s art meccas, it is of course now luxury condos. Haring was a busboy. Madonna was the hat-check girl (and subsequently performed there for the first time). Six floors of music, a video lounge showing video art and early music videos. You can glimpse what the club was actually like, cinematically, in Desperately Seeking Susan.
The Palladium — 140 East 14th Street. Another takeover by NYU, who are slowly owning this whole city. The concert hall was built in 1927 and had a long life as a music venue before Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager transformed it into the legendary nightclub. Haring painted a giant mural in its neon dance floor for the 1985 opening. Basquiat, Francesco Clemente, and Kenny Scharf also made murals for the club. They all attained massive success simultaneously — as Scharf remembered, posing in a complimentary Stephen Sprouse jumpsuit for what might have been a magazine shoot. NYU eventually bought the building, tore it down, and made it another boring residence hall.
11. Fun Gallery
229 East 11th Street
The first home of the eponymous graffiti gallery. I love this story from founder Patti Astor: “I was meeting all the graffiti artists while we were getting the Wild Style movie together and I asked Futura 2000 to paint a mural in my East Third Street apartment. I celebrated the event with an Art Opening Barbeque. Futura was spraying this gorgeous mural and Kenny [Scharf] (calling himself Van Chrome) came by and began ‘customizing’ all my appliances, gluing his little figures all over my refrigerator and stove. Keith [Haring] and Fred [Brathwaite] were there, and Diego [Cortez] showed up with [then-corporate art adviser] Jeffrey Deitch.”
The tiny gallery started in 1981 and gave first solo shows to Basquiat, Lee Quinones, Keith Haring, Fab 5 Freddy, and others. It was renamed for every show — “FUN GALLERY” stuck after Kenny Scharf coined it for his show, creating an “Atoms Can Be Fun” front window with doomed, melting figures. More impressively, the gallery facilitated the growth of their artists’ work without compromising their street cred, which in today’s corporate art world is a feat in itself.
12. Fashion Moda
2803 Third Avenue, Bronx
While the downtown scene gets all the glory, the Bronx had its own thing going. Stefan Eins opened Fashion Moda Gallery during the time that John and Charlie Ahearn were making art in the South Bronx neighborhoods. Like the Lower East Side galleries, Fashion Moda was experimental — openly mixing genres and movements. Haring, David Wojnarowicz, Jane Dickson, Jenny Holzer, Kenny Scharf, and Daze all showed there.
The gallery’s real contribution was bridging uptown and downtown. Eins partnered with art collective Colab, putting on the infamous Times Square Show, and Now Gallery, which showed uptown graffiti to the downtown scene — an actual big deal pre-internet. The exterior was painted by Crash, and the gallery was present during the evolution of hip-hop. Gone since 1993, but essential to the full picture of how Haring and his contemporaries moved through the city.
13. Haring Unearthed
260 West Broadway (private residence)
I can’t imagine an 8,200-square-foot apartment in New York, but complete with its own Keith Haring mural? Preposterous. When realtors were renovating the epic “maisonette,” they accidentally unearthed a long-forgotten Haring mural. Back in his days at the School of Visual Arts, Haring created the piece as part of a student exhibition in 1978, when the space was a student gallery. Made from shoe polish and alcohol, the realtors originally hoped to move the mural, but it would have crumbled if disturbed. So it remained — an amazing asset to a living space most of us can barely allow ourselves to dream of. The mural clearly shows the beginnings of everything Haring’s work would become. You can’t go inside, but it’s worth knowing it’s there: the earliest surviving Haring in the city, hiding behind a very expensive front door.
14. We the Youth — Philadelphia (Bonus)
22nd and Ellsworth Streets, Philadelphia
Not New York, but worth the Amtrak. Haring painted We the Youth in 1987 along with the CityKids in Point Breeze, Philadelphia. It holds the distinction of being the last Haring community-collaborated mural left intact. Over the years the piece had fallen into disrepair, and when the house it’s painted on went up for sale in 2012, the community worried the new owners wouldn’t understand its importance. But the couple who bought it — who initially knew nothing about Haring — did some digging, contacted the Haring Foundation, and set a restoration in motion. The foundation donated funds to Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program, and the mural was beautifully restored in 2013. Come see it.
A surprising number of Haring’s work is still out there: the Crack is Wack mural, Carmine Pool mural, LGBT Center mural, cathedral altar piece, Woodhull Hospital mural, Two Dancing Figures, and the Pop Shop ceiling at the Historical Society — all still free, all still exactly as Haring intended. The nightclubs are condos and dorm rooms now. But twelve years of one artist’s manic energy across five boroughs is still enough to fill a very good day of walking.