Cleaning Up New York: The 1970s Cult Classic

(Paperback, Main)

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Cleaning Up New York has been a word-of-mouth 1970s cult classic since it was first published in 1976 in a limited edition. The East Village, NYC, 1976. A 26-year-old starving poet needs $60. What else to do but register with a temp agency as a house cleaner The excitement never wanes as he is catapulted into the everyday yet unimaginable worlds behind closed (apartment) doors. Bob knows one thing: dirt will always win. Clients are a bit more unpredictable, he discovers, as he comes to terms with eccentric domestic habits and intimate dramas; weird vibes and strange discoveries; appreciation, dependency, dismissal...and seduction. Even if he's asked to clean up a loft the size of the Strand - and he is, and it's above the legendary bookstore - he coffees up with a donut, fortifies himself with some (pocketed) weed, and sets out anew, with disarming insight, originality, and humor. With alternate chapters devoted to practical cleaning tips, Cleaning Up New York is a quirky reinvention in the tradition of George Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, Studs Terkel's chronicles of the working class, and Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management; its narrator a spiritual descendent of Candide, Ida Tarbell, and Holden Caulfield.

Reviews

I first read Cleaning Up New York when it was published in the 1970s and Ive been recommending it to people ever since. Its one of those great, rare works the style of whichimmaculate, with unexpected descriptor glints, and funny, low-key franknessperfectly embodies its subject, namely the revelation of soft shine in humble corners of New York. its a miracle and you dont have to be clean to appreciate it. Richard Hell

Bob Rosenthals Cleaning Up New York is a perfect little gem of a book. There is not one wasted or misplaced word in this chronicle, which manages to contain an awful lot of the world in its few pages. Its not only about the city and its range of denizens, but also about the art of living, the satisfaction of humble work, the way poetry arises from daily experience. and if that werent enough, it also includes really useful advice about cleaning! Lucy Sante

[Cleaning Up New York] is one of the great neglected books of the 1970s, a classic short essay...its brilliant and playful...and eminently practical, too.The Endless Bookshelf blog

Praise for Straight Around Allen
Bob Rosenthals unique, remarkable, and candid recollections of two decades working as secretary for Allen...are, quite frankly, essential reading.The Allen Ginsberg Project blog

Author Bio

Bob Rosenthal was Allen Ginsberg's secretary for 20 years until Ginsberg's death, and currently is a chief advisor to the Ginsberg estate. A poet and writer, he is currently working on a chronicle of the business of Allen Ginsberg. He taught English Language and Literature at the Abraham Joshua Heschel High School in New York City.