Ada Calhoun (b. 1976) is a celebrated author who grew up in a top floor walk-up on St. Mark’s Place, amidst the Bohemian milieu of the East Village—her father a poet and art critic, her mother an actress.
“St. Marks is Dead”: A cogent observer of a scene she knows intimately, Calhoun tells a riveting tale of St. Marks from its earliest beginnings to the present, noting that each generation believes its time was the most important, exciting, and hippest, and that St. Marks has never been the same since. Hence the often-heard lament of, “St. Marks is Dead”.
“Also a Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father and Me”: Calhoun’s memoir is a sometimes painful, always riveting story of her upbringing in an unusual family and setting, her complex relationship with her father, and the effect that relationship had on her life and career. Along the way we also get a close-up view of the great poet Frank O’Hara (1926-1966)—whose unfinished biography by her father, Calhoun had hoped to complete—and feel the literary and artistic pulse of a particular time and place.
The event venue: The Courtyard at 122CC, formerly Public School 122, designed by the distinguished school architect, C.B.J. Snyder, and opened in 1895. In the East Village / Lower East Side at 1st Avenue and East 9th Street. Frank O'Hara lived for a time around the corner at 441 E. 9th St.
