Marc Jacobs, Dean Street and my old roommate, part 1

I moved out of my parents' place when I was 18—it had been inevitable given the amount of weed I smoked, their dislike of it, and the entire trajectory of my life at that point. My friend Ralph introduced me to DJ, a 14 year-old drug dealer who lived on Dean Street in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn. He had his own apartment with a single roommate, Jim. There was a tiny room—a glorified closet really—available and DJ rented it to me. Despite his tender age DJ had more of a five o'clock shadow than I did and he also had the low voice of a grown man. His stock in trade was very pure, liquid LSD that he sold in Visine bottles. He had a roaring business going. He cultivated his clientele by traveling around the country, following the Grateful Dead, and selling the acid at their shows. When he was in New York, he shipped his product all over the country by Fedex. I found his whole setup completely mind-boggling, particularly considering his age. The freezer in our apartment was stuffed with bags of sinsemilla buds and bottles of LSD disguised as Visine. It was in that apartment on Dean Street where I came to regard it as normal to drink Jack Daniels in the morning along with lungfuls of sweet, powerful, skunky bud. I was a bike messenger then, working for Streetwise Couriers in midtown. Legend had it that thugs staked out the stairs leading up to the walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge so I rode straight up Cadman Plaza onto the bridge with the cars. The roadway was a metal latticework that caused the bike to shimmy back and forth as though you were on ice. This took some getting used since cars were flying past at 50+ miles per hour with inches to spare and people often yelled and cursed as they flew past. The ascent was a little tough but once you hit the apex and began to descend you'd often keep pace or even pass the cars. It's hard to describe the sensation of flying through the air, high above the river, with Manhattan rushing at you as you scream down the Brooklyn Bridge on two wheels. It's nothing like the slow and polite promenade ride alongside the pedestrians on the walkway above the road.
In those days (pre fax and internet) the bike messenger companies were color-coded: Purple bags were Can Carriers which was the first company I rode for before I was told that Streewise (Orange) was much hipper to work for. They were, in fact, a way cooler outfit.
I discovered that by showing up early, bringing a freshly rolled joint and coffee for the dispatcher I was ensured choice and plentiful runs. Pickups at 430, 444, and 485 Madison all dropping off to the same location, for instance. Black bags were worn by Prometheus messengers, and yellow by Cycle Service who were on 6th Avenue somewhere near Spring Street. Red bags were carried by Mobile messengers. All (and I mean all) of the bags worn by messengers were made by an old Italian man, Frank de Martini, who operated out of a basement shop at 77 Mott Street in a space he shared with a Chinese sprout growing operation. He charged $40 for his bags and they were indestructible. He was also in the business of making canvas covers for boats. His bags were made of heavy-duty canvas (in the aforementioned colors) lined with bright yellow vinyl. There were two straps with buckles and a strip of Velcro under the flap. While they were compact and light, you could fit a truly incredible amount of stuff into these durable creations. Later, when I moved to San Francisco, I bought a dozen or so of the bags and tried to start a craze but didn't stick with it. A few short years later, every fucking body in every city nationwide has a messenger bag of one sort or another and Manhattan Portage and countless other companies crank them out. None of them come close, in durability or functionality to de Martini's creations. But I digress.
I was put in mind of those days when I read the profile of Marc Jacobs in the most recent issue of the New Yorker. To be continued...