Memorial Party for Tattoo Legend Mike Bakaty at Bowery Electric Tonight
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Mike Bakaty’s underground tattoo shop at McGurk’s Suicide Hall on the Bowery, Photo: Bakaty Family
On January 29, the tattoo community lost one of its legends – Lower East Side homesteader Mike Bakaty. The skin artist had succumbed to his fight with lung cancer at age 77.
Now his Fineline family (which includes son Mehai) is throwing a bash to celebrate his life. This “party in memoriam” happens tonight at the Bowery Electric, from 6-9pm.
As previously noted, the elder Bakaty began inking customers out of his Bowery loft at McGurk’s Suicide Hall in 1976, during the height of the prohibition on tattooing in New York City. So the business operated on the underground circuit. The city would not lift the 30-plus-year ban until 1997, the year Fineline went legit with a store at 21 First Avenue. His studio remains the longest-running ink spot in the city.
Here is the party flyer. See you there.
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