Noah Digital 2020
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Clayton Pattern - LES Archives
Clayton in the 80's
Clayton Pattern (b. 1948) has been documenting the Lower East Side since 1978 in collaboration with life partner Elsa Ransaa.
Together they have amassed a collection of "approximately 2,500 hours of video, hundreds of thousands of photographs and a unique collection of ephemera that focuses on the people, culture and history of the Lower East Side of Manhattan."
From 2019: (left to right: filmmaker Jack Wesley Friedman, tattooers Dylan Kraus, Richie Fie, Marvin Moskowitz, and Clayton)
On Monday I visited his space at 161 Essex Street (between Houston and Stanton) and I met under the pretense that I'd be able to explore this massive archive, which is typically only exhibit in the form of selected footage in documentary form.
;The door to Clayton Patterson's 161 Essex Street storefront and home (Clayton's Hats, Clayton Gallery & Outlaw Art Museum)
When I arrived I didn't expect Clayton to be as welcoming as he was. Instead of directing me to the archives, we sat and ended up talking for multiple hours about our shared interests and the work he has done.
The archive is right now loosely organized in dated boxes that contained numbered photo sets and vhs tapes. The archive is largely undigitalized.
The categories of Clayton's archiving are stem around LES and its inhabitants but could loosely be organized into three categories of wide interest.
1. Subculture, the arts and unique forms of expression
![](https://patterson.no-art.info/shows/2010-06-03_pyramid/picts/12_sun-pk.jpg")
;Drag performer Sun Pk
![](https://patterson.no-art.info/photo/2009_evolution/images/20_evolution-les.jpg")
;A 90's tattoo collector
;Savage Nomads - an NYC street gang largely of Puerto Rican and African Americans who adopted Nazi and Satanist imagery (not in the form of racism but aesthetic adornment)
2. Documenting the communities and peoples Lower East Side
;Images of the Front Door: Over multiple decades Clayton has photographed residents in front of his 161 Essex space
(I will actually be assisting Clayton with the digitizing of these photos).
A storefront of a vacated Jewish business on Essex Street
A homeless community member in Tompkins Square Park
3. Documentation of Police Violence and Protest Movements
1988 Tompkins Square Park Police Riots
04/25/2005: Three detectives were found not guilty on all charges in the shooting death of Sean B., who died in a hail of 50 police bullets outside a club in Jamaica, Queens. verdict prompted calls for calm from the mayor, angry promises of protests by those speaking for the B. family and expressions of relief by the detectives.
2011 Zuccotti Park Evacuation - Occupy Wall Street (holy shit this was almost a decade ago)
Captured Doc with Archival Footage pw: capturedles
9:50 Satan's Sinners (Nomads, MC)
26:30 Warzone (NYHC) at the Pyramid Club
34:00 - Public Health/Drug Use/Homelessness
47:30 - TSP riots
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Party Safe with Bambi and Diana
Mary Feaster (sound fx)
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1712332/
"Mary Feaster, the local Staten Island based bass player, has been on the music scene in NYC for over 20 years. She’s the bass player everyone wants in their band and a lucky number have had the privilege of being grounded in Mary’s ingenious, rocking lines. She is currently in “Viva,” the super-rocking band fronted by guitarist and singer Viva DeConcini."