GOD BLESS PATTI SMITH: "FIND A NEW CITY"...LIKE DETROIT!

During a recent panel discussion and audience Q&A discussion in New York, someone asked Patti Smith if it was still possible for a young artist to move to New York City and live a similar life to the one that Smith, Robert Mapplethorpe and other artists did years ago. Such a life was recently immortalized in Patti's new autobiographical book, Just Kids.

Our hero responded by recalling her move to Manhattan during the 1967 "Summer of Love," when one could still rent a cheap apartment and "build a whole community of transvestites or artists or writers.'" As for today, however: "New York has closed itself off to the young and the struggling. But there are other cities. Detroit. Poughkeepsie. New York City has been taken away from you. So my advice is -- Find a new city."