Playground: Growing Up in the New York Underground [Hardcover]

[A] striking photo memoir of the decade.[Paul Zone's] book, Playground: Growing Up in the New York Underground, is an album about stardoms essential feature: an interesting aura shaped by an interesting face...Zones black-and-white images are beautiful because theyre filled with attitude.Playground is perhaps the definite publication depicting that snippet of time, when everything was up for grabs and plenty were there for the taking. Grab yourself a copy and like me, you will keep going back, again and again.It was the mid-1970s when the death of glam and the birth of punk collided in a celebration of glitter and grime, and 14-year old Paul Zone had a front-row seat for it all....Featured photographs include images of Blondie, Debbie Harry, the Ramones, the New York Dolls, Iggy and the Stooges, the Dead Boys, Suicide, T. Rex, the Fast, and Kiss as well as musicians, artists, and scenesters such as Richard Hell, Johnny Thunders, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Jayne County, Alice Cooper, Lance Loud, Stephen Sprouse, Christopher Makos, Anya Phillips, Cherry Vanilla, Arturo Vega, Anna Sui, Sable Starr, James Chance, Lydia Lunch, and more.You've seen photos from the heyday of CBGB and Max's Kansas City a thousand times. In a way, they never get old, but a new photo book out by Paul Zone (and an exhibition opening tomorrow at Leslie-Lohman's Prince Street Project Space) gets even closer to the likes of Blondie, the Ramones, and the Dead Boys than we've ever been. The downtown figures we know and love still certainly look cooler than iced tea, but it's clear their guards are let down - it's something like seeing the punks in their natural element.Its a great way to explore a priceless piece of New York City history. Although The Mercer Arts Center collapsed years ago, and Maxs and CBGB are no longer what they used to be (now a deli and a high-end clothing store), I always like to visit these places, anyway. I find that reading a book and looking at pictures, followed by visil#}