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‘The drugs were so new, they weren’t illegal yet’: the debauched rise of New York’s wildest bar
It was a seedy hotbed of sex, drugs, edgy music and A-list celebrities where Lou Reed and Andy Warhol partied alongside Blondie and Bowie. How did Max’s Kansas City fall apart?
Jane Fonda might be nestled next to a drug-dealer, drag artist Jackie Curtis could be sat chatting with a member of the Kennedy family, while John Lennon might be chewing Alice Cooper’s ear off about politics. When it was subsequently released as the Live at Max’s Kansas City album, it also captured the musician and poet Jim Carroll trying to score drugs, as he was holding the microphone for the recording. I sometimes go to the deli that's there now – and walk to the back room The original spirit of Ruskin’s era lives on though, through the Max’s Kansas City Project, established by his wife Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin to provide grants and funding for struggling artists.
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