Walking and Talking with Ricky Powell - The Lazy Hustler
“Come, Come,” Ricky Powell said as we followed him out the door of Eva’s Kitchen on West 8th in Greenwich Village, “I’ll take you to my oasis, Washington Square Park.”
Several hours earlier, my friend Matt Reyes and I were shaking off the cobwebs in a booth at Kellogg’s Diner in Brooklyn as we prepared to hop on the L Train to Manhattan. The obsessive in me had pored over interviews with our subject, legendary New York street photographer and Beastie Boys documentarian, Ricky Powell. “What the fuck do I even ask him?” I bemoaned as I scribbled questions in a notebook next to a plate of eggs and hashbrowns. “Let’s just see what he has to say,” Matt responded.
We were ostensibly in New York to cover a bike race in Red Hook later in the week, but we had somehow managed to get ahold of Ricky who graciously agreed to meet up with us. Our original concept was “Four Blocks With…” where we’d take a quick stroll around the block, get a couple quippy answers and be done. Instead, Ricky took us on an hours-long, in-depth tour of Greenwich Village, the neighborhood where he had lived since the 60s.
The Lower Manhattan sky was a thick and uniform gray as we met up with Ricky at his favorite deli, Eva’s. Home to a permanent installation of his photographs of everyone from Run DMC to Andy Warhol to a young Laurence Fishbourne, Eva’s gave Ricky the honor of a signature “falafel burrito” called “The Lazy Hustler”, named after his self applied sobriquet.
That contradiction defines everything that makes Ricky successful. He’s lazy, but he’s a hustler. He’s always behind the camera but he’s gregarious and outgoing. He’s at once self deprecating and self aggrandizing. As we sat in Washington Square Park, he regaled us with stories of touring Europe with the Beastie Boys and rubbing elbows with Basquiat through mouthfuls of falafel burrito, letting glops of tzatziki drop down onto his meticulously selected outfit.
As we drifted from the basketball court where he spent his childhood summers to the grade school he attended with Ad Rock, it became apparent that he is a man of affectations. Striking his signature “jazzy lean” in any photo, two fingers pinched like they’re bringing a joint up to his lips, one leg crossed in front of the other. Peppering phrases like, “Oh Dip!” and “Come, Come” into his stream of consciousness narrative while we walk. To some, these idiosyncrasies may come off as disingenuous, a wall put up between the world and the kid from the Village who spent his days sneaking out onto the rooftops and dreaming over lower Manhattan.
When you meet him, though, you realize all of these repeated phrases and poses are like riffs that build the base for improvisation in the jazzy way he moves through the day. That’s what made him an ideal candidate to walk up to Warhol and Keith Haring and snap their picture, or create some of the most iconic imagery of one of the world’s most influential rap groups. He’s able to push and pull the situation with effortless nonchalance. Waiting to feel the vibe, but ready to take the solo if he gets the nod. One moment he’s pulling up pictures on his phone, showing us where he snapped a legendary Beasties photo, the next he’s chatting up a homeless dude who asked why Ricky was important enough to have someone with a camera following him around. “I’m just Joe Schnook from the neighborhood candy store,” he replies before taking a picture with the guy, sporting his signature jazzy lean.
But that veneer is not impenetrable. As we spent the day with him, perusing the places he’s been hanging out since childhood, Ricky opened up about his fears for the future, concerns over a recent heart attack, and the ramifications of his hard-partying lifestyle. In classic fashion, however, he quickly brushed off these apprehensions as, “feelin’ kinda Art Garfunkel” and flirted with an octogenarian, asking if he could buy her an ice cream cone.
At the end of our walk, Ricky spent some time listening to the jazz station on a small, shortwave radio that he keeps at low volume in his pocket at all times. Staring into puddles, taking pictures of his shoes, and excitedly talking about Richard “Groove” Holmes when his 1966 classic, “Living Soul” comes over the airwaves. When we finally parted ways, I nudged Matt to keep the camera rolling as Ricky swayed off down West 4th, radio in hand, funky organ floating lightly on the breeze. I don’t know if he could tell we were still filming him, or if he just rolls through life like that all the time. It can be hard to tell where the real Ricky stops and the Lazy Hustler begins. But then again, I’m not so sure it matters.
