Leonard Abrams

Leonard Abrams (December 19, 1954 – April 1, 2023) was an American journalist and the founder of East Village Eye. His partner for the last decade of his life was the writer, Angela Sloan.

Early life and education Abrams was born on December 19, 1954, in Brooklyn, New York. His father was a furrier and later a securities trader. His mother was a bank executive.

Abrams studied literature at Fordham University. It covered topics such as the emergence of punk rock, hip hop, and fashion as well as the burgeoning art and nightlife scenes that were centered in the East Village neighborhood during the 1980s. The cultural magazine was in circulation from May 1979 until January 1987. The magazine had a total of 72 issues. The Eye was most influential in the early 1980s, filling a gap after the closure of the SoHo Weekly News in 1982 and before the rise of Details magazine. The Eye is said to be the first publication to print a comprehensive definition of hip-hop in an interview in the January 1982 issue. In the interview by the writer Michael Holman with Afrika Bambaataa the term was summarized as “the all-inclusive tag for the rapping, breaking, graffiti-writing, crew-fashion-wearing street subculture.”

In his later life, Abrams had a business importing Mexican religious items.

Personal life On April 1, 2023, Abrams died of a heart attack at a rest stop on the New Jersey Turnpike while returning to Queens from a business trip. He was 68 years old.