Throwback Photo: Augustus Pablo Meets The Twin Towers Downtown

Words by Jesse Serwer, Photo by Ted Bafaloukos—

Via the excellent Dirty Old New York City Facebook page comes this gem of a photo depicting the late Augustus Pablo and friends, on New York’s West Side Highway, with the World Trade Center in the background. The lights from the then-brand-new Twin Towers flickering behind Pablo in the early evening create an effect that is nothing short of ghostly. It truly captures a moment in time that is New York in the mid ’70s—when you could pose on one of the city’s main highways, with no cars in sight!

Some quick research reveals this photo was taken by none other than Rockers director Ted Bafaloukos during Pablo’s first trip to the U.S. in 1974. It was originally published in a 2010 interview with Bafaloukos on Vice Magazine’s website (in fact we gave that story props ourselves when it first appeared), where you can also find a number of other images of Pablo’s visit to NYC, as well as some classics from the Rockers set.

Ukulele pon di highway

Pablo’s first US performance, at the Tropical Cove nightclub in Brooklyn.