New York City Bum

Disillusioned with society and his career, the writer turns to crack cocaine and soon finds himself homeless on the streets of New York. Unprepared for the desperate life now confronting him, he must come to grips with an alien subculture whose values are questionable, and survive by his wits alone or perish. Having burnt all his bridges, this lost soul is torn between longing to return to the secure life he left behind and discovering an even more appealing rebel existence and a new conception of personal liberation.

An odyssey as well as a historical record, New York City Bum chronicles the underground counterculture of urban street life, emphasizing the drug culture and the homeless and their associations, including some aberrant personalities. This account unfolds at a time when such taboo cultural symbiosis witnessed the decline of an era. It is a true story—all the names and places are real and existed in New York City at the time of the telling—the 1980s and ’90s.

David Boglioli was born in Brooklyn, New York. He attended Outward Bound School, Rider College, and the Culinary Institute of New York. Author of the cookbook Canapés That Work, the novella Wolf Pack, and Detour, a real-life novel, Boglioli was Billy Joel’s first drummer (in The Lost Souls) and chef garde manager at the 21 Club. He lives with his pets in New York City and Vermont.