Stacy Horn

Strecker Memorial Laboratory was a pathology lab connected to City Hospital, which I wrote about in my book about Blackwell’s Island. The lab was closed by the 1950’s and a photographer named Anna Kaysen went inside in the 1960s and took pictures of what was left behind. Which was a lot it turned out. This one was the saddest.

Anna must have found it among all the artifacts in these jars. This one seems to have been taken with a different camera. It almost feels like it was taken in the 19th century, and not just because of the sepia tone. I enlarged it to try to see what was in the rest of the jars, but it was not clear enough to tell.

This appears to be a foot just laying on the floor. How could it remain so well preserved?

I have a book coming out in May, and I have to figure out what I’m going to wear for all the wonderful events my publicist is lining up (thank you, Jackie!). I think I can get away with buying a few tops. If they’re cute enough I can throw them on over a pair of jeans, put on a glittery necklace, and I’m good to go. Right? I’m going to wait until the end of April to shop.

I loved this dress in the window of Cynthia Rowley’s store on Bleecker. I don’t want it for my book events, I don’t want to own it, I just appreciate it.

A Banksy artwork was stolen. He’d painted a rat in the now missing clock (on the corner of 16th and 6th). Bastards. It reminds me of the people who ripped the Keith Haring drawings off the subway walls in the 80’s. I understand the impulse. I wanted to have them too, and considered taking them. But I decided they were supposed to be for everyone.

They’re worth a fortune now, and likely the people who took them are congratulating themselves, and rationalizing what they did by saying they saved the drawings from eventual destruction. Which is probably true. But they’re still greedy, selfish bastards.

I was just saying this on Facebook, but as a former kid who marched for women’s rights, civil rights, and against the Vietnam War, I can’t tell you how much hope this march gives me.

I’ve often felt sorry for younger people today, the way that they are pushed to achieve from the time they are born, but now I’m seeing the plus side of this. This is just the beginning, but already I see that they bring a certain determination and intelligence to their protest that I didn’t possess at the time (and I’m only speaking for myself there, we had very impressive leaders at the time too). I’ve been waiting for them to step up, and just look at them.

I’ve felt such despair lately but maybe we’re going to turn this all around.

I had planned to march but I got a shift at the ASPCA’s hospital and I had to take it. But the subway on the way to work was packed with people on their way to the march. I sat next to a women who said she was a teacher and a mother so of course she was marching.

Doesn’t this front door make you want to go inside? It’s like a secret garden of a building.