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In the 1970s, New York City was a byword for urban decay and the death of the american dream. But this status also led to it becoming the home of punk rock, a music movement that would take over the world – and photographer Christopher Makos was there to document it all, as he tells Anthony Teasdale
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here are certain times in pop culture history when it pays to be in the right place at the right time. The particular location is unimportant: it could be New York in 1948, Soho in 1963 or even Manchester in 1988. For a short time, one place becomes the centre of the cultural world, a happy accident of ambition, opportunity and fate. And to be there when that spark ignites is to be fortunate indeed. Photographer Christopher Makos is one such individual. Raised in California, Makos moved to New York in 1969 with nothing in mind bar the feeling that Los Angeles was not the best place to cultivate his creativity. And that fate thing? That’s the camera he took with him, a birthday present that he felt he obliged to use – and which brought him into contact with some of the most creative, exciting people on the planet: Andy Warhol, ➸
20 christopherward.co.uk
New York was a cesspit of drunks, drug addicts, punks and rock’n’rollers