I had two stints of full time employment at Characters Typographic Services. Looking back, the first gave me the opportunity to pay my rent as an 18 year old, and the second gave me the chance to grow as a young man.
Both times it was thanks to the kindness of Mike DeCrescente…”Mike D” to all of us in the shop.
I will never forget him.
The first stint began in 1982 when I was fresh from dropping out of Syracuse University’s school of Visual Arts after 2 weeks of complete and total social discomfort.
I wasn’t able to live at home and so after I got the job as the nightshift proofboy, I remember sleeping on people’s couches during the day while they were working normal person’s hours. Some months into my first job, my mother helped me get a studio apartment on St. Mark’s Place in New York’s East Village. I think it was $500 a month for a 500 square foot studio. Needless to say, I didn’t think I had much of a life. On the way home in the mornings, I’d buy a bagel at a bakery on first avenue and 5th street, with a slab of cream cheese.
One night about 9 months into my new career, my cigarette butt somehow ignited the plunger that was used to dispense the acetone we used to clean the films before processing the proofs.
Immediately the can erupted in flames and I tried to pick it up and throw it out the fire escape door. The door was locked. My hands were burning and I dropped the flaming can. To clarify, we worked on the 5th floor of a small building on 36th street in New York, one elevator, and a host of toxic and flammable materials, film, photographic developer, and the like.
40 plus years later, in retrospect, I realize this could have killed all of us on that night shift and many more if it weren’t for the quick actions of a film stripper named John. As I remember, John was a Vietnam vet, and he put his experience in the jungle to use that night, grabbing a fire extinguisher, putting out the fire, and saving all of our lives. At the time, however, it was just about getting the morning’s work out to the clients.
Lenny the salesman would come in every morning at 6am to check on his client’s proofs and make sure all was in order. He was a short, rotund guy with a combover, but he was always the first salesman in the shop and the guy with the pharmaceutical accounts that brought in top dollar. So to him, and the rest of us, the smoke filled type shop was just a problem we had to overcome at 6 in the morning; check the proofs, package them up, and get the messengers out the door and to the clients. By the time Mike D came in, my head was down; I was almost in tears and thought I’d be fired for sure.
Well, all that happened was that Mike instituted a no-smoking policy on the shop floor, and I was back to work the next night.
The crew those nights was a hardcore typographic unit:
There was Joe, the night manager, Appelbaum, the head proofreader, Tom, Mori, and John, the film strippers, a gentle giant in the typositor/darkroom, a rasta guy who operated the linotype machine, and a crew of typesetters headed up by a guy who lived 2 hours away on a farm upstate. It seemed to me that guys were making some money. (More about them in another post)
Then there was me and a deaf mute guy pulling the proofs.
Fortunately, Mike D. hired a guy named Paul to help me out in the back, a guy who I recently reconnected with during the past year. Paul was putting himself through art school at the Parsons School of Design, schooling himself during the day and working nights with me at the shop. We quickly became friends and Paul schooled me about the east village.
He seemed to know everybody around, had a beautiful girlfriend, and was dedicated to the artist’s lifestyle. I still remember being off on a Friday night and getting a call from him at 2 am: wake up! We’re going to that after hours club next to McDonalds on first avenue and 6th street!
At the time, the east village was the center of punk, art, and new wave music; the atmosphere was pumping. My weekends were spent in the clubs, bars, and after hours joints; my weeknights were spent working the night shift at the shop.
I lasted about a year during my first period of employment at Characters Typographic Services.
