54 newyork| march30–april12, 2020
Heboughtthe
18th-centurydesk
ata churchsale
onFifthAvenue
and12thStreet.building that hasn’t been gutted and mod-
ernized; if it had been, he wouldn’t have
given it a second thought.
Like many people who lived through the
aids crisis, McGough looks on the current
pandemic from the experience of that
perspective—and with grace. Years back,
he’d carry “a little blue glass bottle with a
cork in it like the size for your palm, and it
had vodka in it because that’s a hand sani-
tizer. I’m not a drinker, but I used it to sani-
tize my hands. You know, I almost died five
times in my life. So I was prepared for it.”
Besides, “this apartment to me is like
a living sculpture. I think of it as an art
piece. It’s an environment, a whole atti-
tude like it’s the 1930s but I’ve been here
since the ’20s. The building is from 1905,
and I have this little story in my head of
how I have lived here; that’s my fantasy
that keeps me going. I am not one of those
people who like the minimalist block of
wood as a coffee table.” ■“I bought those hangings
at the flea market.I’d only
seen things like that in
1940s movies, andthe
curtains behind them
I had made.” McGough
makes his bed every
morning, “becauseif I’ve
had the worst day andmy
bed looks nice, I think,
All right, I can calmdown.”He’s had the maid’s
uniform since the ’80s,
“when McDermott and
I had our studio in the
Kings Co ings
Bank in burg.
We hese
uniforms and we’d give
parties and we’dhave
the people wearthem.”