Mapplethorpe, too, had escaped to New York, in his case from a straight-laced Catholic family on Long Island, in an effort to “commit his life to art alone.” For the next five years, Smith and Mapplethorpe would live and create together, moving from an almost hand-to-mouth existence of part-time jobs and sleeping in cheap, lice-ridden rooms, to the artist-filled world of the Chelsea Hotel and success. It was the summer I met Robert Mapplethorpe. And in this shifting, inhospitable atmosphere, a chance encounter changed the course of my life. It was the summer of Elvira Madigan, the summer of love. AM Radio played “Ode to Billie Joe.” There were riots in Newark, Milwaukee, and Detroit.
It was the summer Coltrane died…Jimi Hendrix set his guitar in flames in Monterey.
“No one expected me…Everything awaited me”: In July 1967, 20-year-old teachers college dropout Patti Smith got off a bus from Philadelphia in New York City, determined to become an artist.
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