When Madonna Louise Ciccone arrived in New York from Michigan aged 19 in 1978, she had a small suitcase, a winter coat and $35 in her pocket. In an interview with the broadcaster Howard Stern years later, she would admit that she was frightened: “The massive scale of New York took my breath away … I was poised for survival … But I was also scared shitless and freaked out by the smell of piss and vomit.”
In the ensuing years, Madonna would
