In 1959, in the basement of a tenement on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Richard and Dorothea Tyler founded an avant-garde artists’ collective and funeral society called the Uranian Phalanstery and First New York Gnostic Lyceum Temple. The Tylers were influential underground figures in postwar New York City culture. They connected people and created webs of creativity and spirituality that blended music, visual arts, publishing, tattooing, Eastern religion, Gnosticism, Judaism, and communalism. And more. And all at once.

To learn more about the Tylers and other fascinating figures of Lower East Side culture, try "Offbeats," by Clayton Patterson and me:
https://www.amazon.com/Offbeats-Lower-East-Side-Portraits/dp/188727698X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=21N2WB9O809HS&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Nsz3wlbumXlmb3uYkNDVckgcJRWRTEW-k6SuiTIu_i1I7Yp2dF8H_-KuVLBJLfVAOMGA7nmLrs1CLwyUMkqLiLIJD7XgZYebmMdU-RF1FK-B0iZQYYHemTUnBYkFtXg4dwRqePMd-FTcsnVZGHbkVsP_U3r8y7WbtB39tY9fMr_sUC9yxULpFcfrFPIqVRi582EHHaNQePft0mxdT3a9zfvhzVYLMjvfCteQ4QiSrMA.McI_tCM5JaePJEVbAO1OPwqywsvmJ8gw4xQXrzxZlO8&dib_tag=se&keywords=Offbeats+Patterson&qid=1715717775&s=books&sprefix=offbeats+patterson%2Cstripbooks%2C101&sr=1-1

Throughout World War II, Wall Street banks and giant American corporations traded with the Nazis and Japanese and played both sides in the war. They included Chase National Bank, Standard Oil, DuPont, and General Motors, among others. The impulse to prosecute them as traitors for their financial dealings with the Nazis and Japanese was countered by a simple, inescapable reality: the U.S. needed their backing as well.

Sixty-three years ago, on April 12 1961, Yuri Gagarin fell out of the sky. He was the first human to go to outer space. He almost didn't make it back alive. In their "space race" against the well-heeled Americans, the Soviets rushed their scientists, cut corners, and were very careless with their cosmonauts' lives. Gagarin was a lucky survivor. NOTE: I do not own this image.