Frankie Neptune - Gratiffi - 1982
Hello Frankie, thanks for agreeing to speak with Occhi Magazine. Your creative journey began on the streets of New York with a camera in hand, long before you wore a badge. How did your early experiences as a street photographer shape your perspective as a police officer—and vice versa?
When I was 19 years old, I was one of the first people under 21 to get a “Hack” license to drive a taxi in NYC. Previously, the minimum age was 21. I drove nights because I was a full-time undergraduate college student with a major in Communication Arts and Sciences (Radio & Television Production.) I soon got involved with video art and a bit of offbeat performance art, moving away from a desire to work in mainstream network commercial television. My taxi driving led me into the downtown world of the West Village, SoHo, and the East Village. I saw so much and learned to survive by not becoming an “ATM Machine” for the “dangerously unsavory types” of street people. The world of the underground illegal clubs and music venues was in full swing, and as I drove, I learned, and I made friends.
In the middle of it all, (after graduating with a B.A.) I left NYC for two years (1975-1977) and got a Master’s degree in Instructional Technology at Indiana University. I thought I wanted a job in education, producing Instructional videos and other learning media. I came back to NYC and got a position as an Assistant Professor/Associate in Educational Communications at a Medical School in NYC. I would come home smelling like the morgue after videotaping autopsies. They wanted me to pursue a Phd to get tenure. So I left, and as a half-serious/midlife “career” change, I became an NYPD cop. I knew the deal and had a head start by having prior street knowledge (and I grew up in Brooklyn.) I was going to go back and get the Phd in a few years, but I stayed with the NYPD, retiring at the rank of Lieutenant, a few months after the 9/11 WTC attack. I think I came to “The Job” with a unique skill set of the street, the arts, a weird sense of humor, and a liberal arts education. Living in the Midwest for a while helped me understand and communicate with people who were not from NYC, especially new arrivals.
You’ve described the NYPD as “the greatest show on earth.” What moments from your time on the force most challenged your ideals or sense of self, and how did you process those conflicts creatively or personally?
I knew everyone had a story; some of the time, it was bullshit. I had the uncanny ability (at least I think so) to know when someone was blowing smoke up my ass. I actually listened to their stories and asked probing questions. While I knew they were trying to get over on me, I would ask questions that would confuse them; one favorite was “When you say yes, do you mean no?” Street people always want to get over in everything they do and everyone they encounter, no matter how small the point may be. That’s how the street works; it’s a constant dance. There is no time element. They always say, “I’ll catch you later.” Time is not really meant to be measured. Money is power, and flesh is cheap. They (street people) are accustomed to waiting, and urgency only is a factor when someone owes them money.
Over the years, I’ve been fascinated by the image of NYC that most out-of-towners have when coming to NYC to achieve their dreams. I’ve heard the stories, and I must admit, some of them get to me (only for a while). I then would tell them, go back to Ohio, NYC will eat you up, spit you out, and leave you without hope, and test their boundaries of what humanity really is. Creatively, I would make up names or a combination of letters to describe them. e.g., CLAP (Caucasian Liberal Asshole Professional) for someone who comes to NYC and immediately thinks they are a New Yorker. (Joe Scarborough, of MSNBC, was like that when he first moved to NYC after just one month; he bragged about being a New Yorker.) Or aPUPE (Pompous, Uninformed, Pretentious, Elitist.)
Michael Watson paints you as both a witness and participant in the city’s moral complexity. How did your friendship with Michael influence your own understanding of justice, loyalty, and truth?
Michael Watson is a fictional character. I thought it would be like Dr. Watson is to Sherlock Holmes, interesting. The introduction of this novel is a fictional story of how their relationship developed because they knew each other growing up. Both come from single-parent homes, they are good friends, and the Doctor/Patient relationship exists. Nothing really influences Frankie Neptune’s understanding of Justice, Loyalty, and Truth. It all goes back to reset itself in the end. He could get swayed once in a while, but it really doesn’t change things.
The “Gotham Esthetic” is central to your art and worldview. How do you define that esthetic today, and how has it evolved since your days driving a taxi and shooting late-night street scenes?
“The Gotham Esthetic” is a unique continuum. My views have not changed over time, especially with what’s happening today in New York City. I run into people today who lived in NYC in the 1990’s and they freak out when I tell them what it was like back in the early 1970s and 1980s. It’s all a continuum; their NYC is theirs, and mine is mine. Example: The areas on the West Side in “The Meat Packing District” and the area between West 14th Street and 42nd Street were desolate and dangerous. Now they are quite different. I guess I was lucky, in all those years of driving that taxi and hanging out downtown, and even uptown, nobody messed with me. Now that I live on the north shore of the eastern end of Long Island, about 100 miles from NYC, I’ve settled into a quieter, less hectic lifestyle. I don’t go to NYC that much anymore.
You entered the NYPD almost as a performance piece, planning to stay only a year. What kept you engaged—and what did you learn about yourself by staying much longer than intended?
I discovered I had a good time going to work. The cops I worked with were cool, and I knew how to dress for work. (LOL) As an ode to Picasso, this was my “Blue Period.” (LOL) I also liked being off during the week and was able to walk the streets during the day. I noticed things about buildings and streets I missed when driving past them in the dark. Most of these images I took are lost (probably thrown away mistakenly (or not mistakenly) during my moving around out of NYC and back.)
Being a cop was like driving a taxi again, only this time it was more intense. I learned that I did not need a “career,” I needed to be free, the illusion of freedom, outside of an office, in the real world. No need to get a Phd. I could just be a cop, and if I got the urge, take the promotion test to go up in the ranks. In addition, I learned that what was reported by the media is mostly bullshit by politicians or agenda seekers. As a cop, ˆ I got to really interact, I got to know what was really going on. I was injected into the mix, hearing and seeing all sides of the story. Making decisions, helping those unfortunates, and dealing with real predators.
The book delves into institutional corruption and moral compromise. In your view, what is the biggest misconception the public has about the inner workings of the NYPD, and what do you wish more people understood?
When I was on the job, corruption was not systemic throughout the department. I know this for a fact. I was “drafted” into Internal Affairs as a Sergeant. I was there for about two and a half years. I saw more good cops than bad cops. I had to be involved in arresting bad cops, like escorting cops who failed the random drug screening test to get dismissed at the Health Services Division. Very distasteful and depressing. With the Body Cameras, it is now proven that Police Brutality is not as rampant as it was thought to be, and the stats back that up. But stats and video images can be manipulated and are so by the media. The media still says the NYPD is still racist, but it is now 61 percent minority.
I’ve dealt with Al Sharpton; he was not that bad to deal with one-on-one. But when the TV camera was on, he was a different person. It’s all a scam. When I taught college-level criminal science as an adjunct professor after I retired, the students would ask what is the first thing you did before going went out on patrol, was it check crime stats? They’d list several things, and I said no. I finally told them it was “Where are we gonna have dinner tonight?” My partner and I didn’t want to go out and make trouble and harass innocent people. We just wanted to hang out, keep an eye out for potential bad guys, and have a good time. Every profession or job has to deal with moral compromise, but a cop has to deal with it on a very personal level. People love firemen, but hate cops. I know people are usually interacting with cops in confrontational or highly emotional situations. Cops have to be prepared to react in an ever-changing role to defuse something that can quickly evolve into a dangerous situation. That’s when a quirky sense of humor helps. Luckily, my “strange” sense of humor helped me handle what I’ve seen. No PTSD for me.
Much of your early work documented a New York that has since vanished. How do you feel about the city’s transformation, and do you see your art as a form of preservation or protest?
As stated, it is a continuum. I now remember how it was with rose colored glasses. I think that type of historical view is natural. I’m sure those before me must have bemoaned what was happening to their NYC while I was there in the mix. It’s an individual’s preservation; it makes people (and me) feel good about their prime NYC times. As they used to say in Brooklyn, “Who had it better than ME?
You’ve lost or given away much of your photographic archive. Do you see this as a loss, a liberation, or something else? How do you approach memory and legacy in your creative life?
I don’t consider it a big deal. As you said, I’m in the process of giving away most of my stuff to friends, or it will get thrown out when they eventually come to clean out my basement. I remember responding to a homicide, a philosophical street person wistfully said, “When you dead, you dead.” I don’t believe in legacy or memory. If you are lucky to just fade away, no one can paint you with the brush of revisionist history.
The narrative in “A Thread in Time” blurs the lines between law enforcement and vigilantism. How did you personally navigate the tension between institutional duty and personal morality—especially when official channels failed victims?
I believe it should not be called the Criminal Justice System, but the Victim’s Justice System.” A lawyer friend of mine once told me, “Cops have the most experience and common sense knowledge of the law.” It was hard to navigate, but I did the best I could; each encounter is unique.
Your decision to look the other way can have a great impact on a person’s life. It’s called doing the right thing. If you do what you think is “right”, but is not the norm of “right, that’s on you. Do you see the residue of cocaine on a glass coffee table with rolled up twenty-dollar bills in the apartment of a local news anchor who called 911 because she and her boyfriend were having “heart attacks?” You look at the EMS guy and silently agree that there is nothing there, and by your decision, you save her career. Or do you do the norm of the “right thing” and screw up her life? Do you “tune up” a guy who you know is a child molester hanging out in a park and dump him in Brooklyn without his shoes, and tell him if you see him there again, he will get thrown in the East River? Or just fill out a form documenting that you spoke to him?
How did your collaborations with other artists—like Paul Tschinkel and your time with Inner-Tube—impact your approach to both art and policing?
Paul allowed me to express myself. He was like a mentor to me. The people I met through him and the circle of my own experience melded together. Becoming a father, I moved out of Manhattan. That led me to a 20-year period of inactivity in creativity. Starting to write short stories got me back on the “wagon.” I owe it all to the success of “The Brewery Boys”, me, Glen Hansen, and Jack Gismondi. It is alleged (by Art Historian and Curator of The Nassau County Museum of Art, Franklin Hill Perrell) that we three started the “new” art movement on the North Shore of Long Island in 2017.
After retiring, you returned to fine art photography and exhibitions. How does your current work reflect or depart from the themes and experiences explored in Michael Watson’s book?
It took quite a while to get away from urban imagery. Again, the word continuum should be applied to me. I don’t visit NYC anymore; it went on without me, as did I without NYC.
Given your unique vantage point inside both the NYPD and New York’s art world, what advice would you give to young artists or activists seeking to capture the city’s complexity today?
Experience it while you can, NYC is great, but at the same time is fickle and changes. It will probably soon leave you behind. As a young artist, you think you’re doing something new, but it’s been done before. I was just in the right place at the right time to meld the cop thing with the creative thing.
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