A Soho Loft Answering Machine from 1992

Posted by | May 08, 2009 | Uncategorized | No Comments

answer phone tape

Jim Nachlin has a site with a collection of transcriptions of his audio cassettes. My favorite is the answering machine from the Soho Loft that he grew up in from the 70s. In a complete reversal of today, NY outside was scary, but lofts were cheap enough to ride a bicycle inside.

This is the answering machine tape from my parent’s place at 46 Great Jones Street.

It won’t be of much interest to you if you’re not Maggie Nachlin, Wendy Young, Jason Leaf, Matt Israel, Ben Posnack, Sonya Newell, Isabel Pippolo, Lisa Townsend Rogers, Mikaela Frank, Doug Margolis, etc. (or David Galbraith)

The place was two lofts, the third and fourth floor, of an 1880s factory building, in which my sister Maggie and I grew up. My parents bought them in 1970 or 1971 when they were cheap and their friends said “why the hell are you moving all the way over there”, so let that be a lesson to you, real estate speculators, not that you haven’t learned it already. It was great growing up there. New York in the late 70s and the 80s sucked, so I spent a lot of time indoors. I learned to ride a bike in there. These were big apartments.


46 Great Jones Street answering machine