roughest, worst place to go, so we gravitated as a matter of course to that. Times Square was great, but going to the Bronx was even greater. At the time, three artist friends of Colab [Stephen Eins, Joe Lewis, and William Scott] had started this arts space in 1978 called Fashion Moda.
He had been asking around [about] how he could meet this Charlie Ahearn.He comes up to me and says he would like to talk to me about the idea for a movie.This would involve what was happening on the subways with all the graffiti, combined with what was happening on the street that would come to be known as hip-hop.
That was a bold move back then. Could you tell me a little bit about Fashion Moda?
That’s an important point because, at the time, the two things weren’t connected in the public’s eye, were they?
It was on 149th Street and Third Avenue, right in the middle of the shit. It was a big space, and my brother’s show, South Bronx Hall of Fame , that had been featured on the cover of the Village Voice , had been held there. My wife, Jane Dickson, had also done this show called City Maze . It was this maze made out of cardboard packaging from sofas or refrigerators that had been dumped into the Bronx. She went in a truck, found all this cardboard, and brought it back to Fashion Moda and created this maze with all these passages all over the place, and had graffiti artists make paintings on the walls. Fashion Moda really became a magnet for graffiti artists and local kids as soon as school was out. That was the whole idea of radical art to us—to transform people’s lives, not make objects of great value for some collector. And The Times Square Show had the same kind of vibe.
Not at all. Nobody saw any relationship between what was happening on the subways in Manhattan with the MCs and block parties in the Bronx.The stuff on the subways had been everywhere for a number of years.We lived with it as NewYorkers. It was on all the trains. But, to experience hip-hop at that time, you had to go to the Bronx— that is where that was happening. And Fab 5 Freddy was connected to all of that. I knew that he’d been working with Lee Quiñones on various projects. They had done the exhibition [at Galleria La Medusa] in Rome in 1979. So I told Fab 5 Freddy,“If you can bring Lee Quiñones here tomorrow morning at 11 a.m., I will bring some bank—like say fifty dollars—and you guys can get some spray paint and make a piece on the wall outside the building.” That was my vision of the future—not making this movie that would become a huge success. My thing was: I have been trying to get my grip on this guy Lee Quiñones for two years.
There are some iconic Bronx places featured in Wild Style , including the Dixie.
So, finally, this was your moment.
That was a great place where Grandmaster Flash would perform. It was right in the neighborhood of Rodney C [of Funky Four Plus One and Double Trouble]. I used that neighborhood a lot because I had people like Rodney C—and many others—who had helped me establish trust in the neighborhood. So we could work there and do all those famous scenes.All those in the film were neighborhood kids, and they knew who I was. Or at least they knew who Rodney was. I never went to places where I didn’t belong. I was always a guest of people who liked and trusted me. I was very careful about that. I was always with people, never wandering around on my own.
Sure enough, at 11 a.m., Freddy turns up with Lee Quiñones. I had the money—two twenties and a ten. Enough to get some spray paint. So here in the painting is Lee Quiñones and Fab 5 Freddy creating this work on the wall outside of the Times Square building. I took one photograph when they were making this piece, and this painting at this exhibition is a representation of that pivotal moment.
How did things develop from that into the making of Wild Style?
Well, now my mind is starting to work. So this movie is going to be about Lee rather than just this idea of Freddy’s about subway art and hip-hop. I wanted the film to be about this iconic graffiti artist who is painting on trains illegally and has to be secretive because nobody is supposed to know who he is, as he’s the most wanted graffiti artist in New York. The police are after him. So Lee was to be the main character but, rather than set the film on the Lower East Side, I chose to base most of it in the Bronx. At that time, the South Bronx really was the poorest and roughest “don’t go there” place.
What were the first hip-hop events you went to in the Bronx?
[At] the first major hip-hop event I went to, Busy Bee is there by the stage with this lit joint. He looks at me, and he’s like, “Holy shit, it’s the cops.” And he goes,“What’s up, man?” So I tell him I’m doing a movie about hip-hop. He puts his arm around me and leads me across the stage to where the mic is. He then goes, “This here is my film producer—we’re making a movie about the rap scene.”That is [how] he became a centerpiece of the movie. Because once that happens, the doors are wide open: I’m with Busy Bee, and everyone knows who Busy Bee is. And that goes back to what I was saying about trust. Once that happened, I’m approached by many people in the audience.And everyone there is a hip-hop person.They all have flyers and they all want me to go to their parties. The flyers [are] how I moved into the Bronx.
But you did go there.
My twin brother, John, lived there and was making portrait casts of people in the Bronx at the time. I was also up there shooting things and showing The Deadly Art of Survival . It was considered the
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