Leee Black Childers with friend / Photo by Gerry Visco
“Hey big spender…gotta match, daddy? Gotta cigarette?”
That’s one of the lines rent boys used to pick up their tricks on “the block”—53rd and 3rd—during the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. In 1968, when photographer Leee Black Childers arrived in New York from Kentucky, the soft-spoken boy was approached on the street by a “woman” wearing a big blonde wig, fake eyelashes and 6” platform boots. “Hey handsome, gotta Virginia Slim?” Although he didn’t smoke, it didn’t take long before he figured out what she was really looking for.
Fast-forward 41 years. Gotta Cigarette?
Drag Queens and Rent Boys is the name of the photography exhibit by Childers on view at Subdivision Art in Long Island City. “I had a couple of solo shows before but only for fun,” Childers told me. “One was at The Palladium, the other at Webster Hall in the ’90s.”
This show, though, is the first of his photographs from the seedy New York gay scene. Childers is famous for being Andy Warhol’s assistant at the Factory, Bowie’s personal photographer and the manager for Johnny Thunders and Sid Vicious. The show consists of 96 photos, most taken during the 1970s and ’80s of assorted hustlers as well as legends Jayne County, Jackie Curtis, Holly Woodlawn and Candy Darling.The 21st- century subjects include Hattie Hathaway, Kenny Kenny, Joey Arias, Phillippe Blonde and Sherry Vine.
Out on the sidewalk was a collection of modern club kids mixed with their forbearers. Makeup artist Christina Via is both now and then. “I used to see Leee down at the Mudd Club in the ’70s,” she told me. “He’s just great.” Katie Madonna, a twenty-something from Indiana working in the New York City film industry, agreed wholeheartedly.
It’s high time Childers got his due.
Along with Danny Fields, Maripol and more, Childers’ photographs are part of Bande à part, a group art show (with an accompanying book) traveling the globe right now and returning to New York in November. It’s obvious that now’s the time for Childers—though he might never admit it. “I’m surprised,” he said, ever bashful, “by how many people came all the way out to Queens.”
