As a department made up of inveterate New Yorkers ourselves, we love seeing the history of the city come through the doors. Whether they’re pictures of how things were (or remain to this day), or memos and communications about the city’s fractious relationship with its citizens, or even just bits of the university’s own long (often fractious!) history…any object with a whiff of city life is enough to trigger our best Ratso Rizzo impression right there at the workbench.
A series of details of letters written by Dorothy Dean to her friend, Joe Campbell.
We recently had the pleasure of photographing a collection of letters, fresh out of the Conservation lab, written by Dorothy Dean to her close friend and fellow New York underground socialite Joe Campbell. Lou Reed fans will likely know Campbell by his nickname: “Sugar Plum Fairy,” a seedy character made famous in Reed’s 1972 single “Walk On the Wild Side.” Campbell’s first official turn as the Sugar Plum Fairy (itself a euphemism for someone who always has the drugs) was in a minor role in Andy Warhol’s 1965 film “My Hustler,” which also starred Dean.
Dean’s writing style is acidic, sharp and irresistible–she’s a gin martini with a chaser of wicked gossip. Her dry and cutting sense of humor is on full display in these letters, as is her fierce devotion (bordering on obsession) with Campbell. The New York attitude tracks–you’ve got to have a tough cookie exterior if your main gig is working the door at Max’s Kansas City. One of her funniest recurring gags, when she’s not regaling Campbell with the classic “New York Telephone Conversation” antics of who touched whom when and where, is to relate fantastic two-line movie reviews of what’s currently playing in New York.
Many thanks to our friends in the Fales Collection for bringing these through the lab–we hope you enjoy seeing the letters (and their charming envelopes, as well as clippings Dean often included) as much as we did photographing them.
The collection is viewable via the Fales Collection finding aid here.