Once-Dying Art of Tattooing, Vibrantly Alive Around the City

BY NATALIE MUSUMECI

[Brooklyn College student]

In the early 1950’s when he was just 13 years old, Mike Bakaty, 74, got his first tattoo for only 50 cents of his name on his arm, basically “out of boredom.” When he was in the Navy he got even more tattoos because “that’s what sailors did.”

In 1970 he moved to New York City – the birthplace of modern tattooing. “Tattooing in New York City in the 70’s was essentially a dying art,” said Bakaty. The fact that this tattoo culture was dying out is primarily what got him interested in the world of tattooing.

Bakaty opened Fineline Tattoo in 1976 during the midst of the underground atmosphere of New York City’s ban on tattooing, which was in effect from 1961 to 1997. The New York City Health Department ordered that all city tattoo parlors had to close down due to an alleged series of blood-borne hepatitis B cases linked to tattooing in the late 1950’s.

Instead of closing down, New York City tattoo artists began to operate underground for 36 years, in secret backrooms and loft apartments until the ban was lifted in 1997.

“Tattooing wasn’t as out in the open as it is today – I was aware of probably six to eight tattooists working in New York City, Brooklyn, the  Bronx, and Queens and they all worked underground,” said Bakaty. “When I started tattooing in 1976 there were probably 500 tattoo artists in the whole country,to tell you the truth,” he said.

Today tattooing has developed into an art form as opposed to a stigma that was once associated with those in the realm of macho male drunken sailors, outlaw bikers, thugs, and criminals. People who are inked agree that some stereotypes associated with tattooing still persist, but because of the exposure that tattooing has gotten through the media, Hollywood, rock stars, celebrities ranging from Johnny Depp to Lady Gaga, and kitschy tattoo television programs like LA Ink or Miami Ink, it no longer is considered taboo or deviant to get a tattoo.

But when Bakaty started tattooing in New York City, the tattoo taboo very much existed. Bakaty recalled that from the 1940’s up until the mid 1960’s there was virtually no sterilization, hygiene, or running water in tattoo shops – they were referred to as “bucket-shops.” The artist would tattoo next to a bucket of water with a sponge in it, and that same bucket of water and sponge were used to wipe down every tattoo the artist did that day.

In those days tattoo artists had to have a sense of how to make tubes and needles. They had to have knowledge of how the tattoo machinery worked and an understanding of the different types of pigments because tattoo supply stores were just not available the way they are today.

But these tattooists never thought about sterilization, wearing gloves, changing the needles, or even changing the cups of ink after every client. Bakaty said that when the tattoo was finished the artist would swipe a glob of Vaseline over the fresh ink and stick a piece of newspaper to it – when the newspaper fell off the tattoo was considered healed.

It was later discovered that although there was indeed a lack of sterilization in the tattoo industry, hepatitis was actually never linked to tattooing. “When tattooing started becoming popular people got concerned and they got the perception that because there is blood involved people are getting diseases – it’s that perception that drove all of this hysteria,” said Wes Wood, owner of Unimax Tattoo Supply and former tattoo artist. Wood, along with Clayton Patterson, was involved in the effort to legalize tattooing. “We just represented the interest of the tattooist,” he said.

In 1990 Wood opened up Sacred Tattoo on Broadway, right between Chinatown and SoHo, even though it was still illegal to tattoo within city limits. He held meetings every month in his fairly spacious 3000 square-foot tattoo shop in the 90’s and everyone from tattoo artists to tattoo enthusiasts attended.

Wood and Patterson were voted to be the representatives of the tattoo community and they did all the negotiating with the Health Department. Wood and Patterson also played a significant role in the organization of New York City’s first tattoo convention in May of 1997, three months after tattooing became legalized. “The Health Department didn’t put up a fight when it came time to sign the law legalizing tattooing,” said Wood.

On March 27, 1997 Mayor Giuliani signed into law the bill lifting New York’s 36-year ban on tattooing. On that day Spider Webb, a known tattoo artist during the prohibition days, stood on the steps of City Hall with a top hat and long feather plume machine ready to ink the city’s first legal tattoo in over 36 years.

Wood said that Kathryn Freed, former Lower East Side City Councilwoman and coordinator in the effort to legalize tattooing, found out in the 90’s that the Health Department knew in 1961 that tattooing did not cause any spread of hepatitis. The so-called deviant tattoo world was easy to peg for the spread of blood-borne disease.

One opposition that the Health Department had to the re-legalization bill was that they just did not have the budget or staff to carry out the licensing and inspection provisions, which were mandated by the new legislation.

“[Hepatitis] was just all over the place across the country. People didn’t know where it came from, but the popular view by the general public was that tattooing was a savage barbaric practice – it had to be that there was something psychologically wrong with you to do that to yourself,” said Wood. “The only tattooing people saw was when you went to the circus to see the freaks,” he said.

Wood first got into tattooing in 1985. After learning to tattoo he became interested in how the tattoo machinery was made. “I got a couple of tattoos – there is no reason why – it just popped into my head – I had the desire. It’s like asking why you fell in love – you don’t ask why you fell in love because that wouldn’t be a valid question – it just happened,” said Wood sternly. Today his forearms, legs, back, and chest are covered in tattoos.

The tattoo meccas of New York City during a significant portion of the 19^th century were established in the Bowery of Chatham Square and in Coney Island. The rebellious tattooists that survived in New York City during the ban had to build up their clientele solely through word of mouth.

Up until the ban was lifted Bakaty of Fineline Tattoo originally operated out of a private loft in the infamous Bowery and ran ads in the Soho Weekly News even though tattooing was a violation of the health code. He relocated Fineline to 1^st Avenue on the Lower East Side where he stills tattoos today alongside his son, Mehai Bakaty.

Fineline Tattoo is a small tattoo parlor with its walls lined with the Bakaty boys’ original flash art of dragons, eagles, tigers, panthers and Celtic knots. Fineline Tattoo, in business for over 30 years, is the longest continually running tattoo shop in Manhattan.