New Year's Day

New Year's Day, January 1, 1987, appears in Andy Warhol’s diary as a day of rain, bad weather, and rest. Its significance lies in the contrast between the long New Year’s Eve that preceded it and the brief, deliberately uneventful account of the holiday itself: after staying out late, Warhol stayed in and took the day off.

The Recorded Day

The entry is unusually spare. It identifies the weather as rainy and awful, then records that Warhol stayed inside and rested. Rather than supplying a list of visitors, meals, or errands, it preserves a day defined by what did not happen: there was no outing and no activity beyond taking a break.

The date fell on a Thursday, within the diary’s ordinary Monday-to-Friday recording schedule. Pat Hackett recalled that she and Warhol spoke by phone in the mornings to record the previous day’s activities and expenses, and that the conversations could last one or two hours despite being described as a five-minute job. The published New Year’s Day entry, by contrast, reduces the day to a single clear fact: Warhol rested at home.

After New Year’s Eve

The preceding night had ended around four in the morning. Warhol and his companions had visited a gathering at Scott Asen’s house in Turtle Bay, then gone to Nell’s; Paige and Tama continued on to The Tunnel while the others drove them there. After returning home, Warhol walked the dogs. He remarked that staying out late simply because it was New Year’s had thrown off his whole day.

The next day’s rest follows that disruption without turning it into a dramatic episode. The diary’s sequence makes the connection legible: a late return and an interrupted routine give way to a day indoors. The holiday is registered through its practical aftermath—lost sleep, a shifted schedule, and the decision to stop and recover—rather than through a general account of celebration.

A Day in the Diary

The diary’s recording practice helps explain why this modest entry matters. Before 1976, Hackett kept a sketchy Factory log assembled from business visitors and other people’s accounts of the previous night. After she and Warhol agreed that the daily accounts would come from him, the log became his personal narrative, while still tracking expenses for tax purposes. Even small costs could enter the record; receipts were later attached to the typed pages and stored in letter boxes.

The published diary is not an unedited transcript of every day. Hackett reduced an original 20,000 pages, sometimes cutting whole days or weeks and often selecting only part of a day’s material. Against that editorial history, the compact New Year’s Day entry retains a particular kind of evidence: not a social itinerary or a consequential event, but a moment when Warhol’s routine stopped. The contrast between the preceding night’s late return and the day’s plain rest makes that pause visible.