Herbert Huncke

The Bunker Diaries By Stewart Meyer Beatdom Books $19.99 The Bunker* is one of the major sites of Beat History, the downtown NYC lair of William Burroughs. Two others I can think of: The Six Gallery** where Howl was first read aloud by Allen Ginsberg. The third is the Beat Hotel in the Latin quarter of Paris,***, where Gregory Corso lived in the attic, Burroughs & Brion Gysin discovered the cut-up method with an accidental slice of newsprint, and Allen Ginsberg passed through at the end of the 1950s. photograph by James Grauerholz With only Gary Snyder remaining among us, we now must rely on younger friends of the Beats for any direct history. Stewart Meyer hung out at the Bunker quite a bit from 1978 to 1983. This was New York City’s hey-day of punk bands -- as well a wide wave of heroin use. Elsewhere in NYC, photographer Nan Goldin’s polaroids capture the baked eyes of cool kids, some on their way to the grave. ...