Godlis A 1977 photo of CBGB, which operated on the Bowery from 1973 to 2006. Owners of the club’s assets are now planning a festival and seeking to revive it at a new site. For the last six years the name CBGB has been little more than a logo on T-shirts for young people in the East Village. Now a group of investors has bought the assets of that famous punk-rock club, which closed in 2006, and plans to establish an ambitious music festival this summer, with an eye toward reopening the club at a new downtown location.
The new owners of the club’s assets — some with ties to the original Bowery establishment — say they hope that the festival will revive the wide-open artistic aesthetic associated with CBGB, which in its heyday served as an incubator for influential acts like Television, the Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Sonic Youth and Patti Smith. Read more…
Clint Rainey Pianos, 158 Ludlow Street.As I was making my way down Avenue A last week, a young girl in combat boots asked me for a light. I stared at her, confused. It was obvious to me that before she left the house that morning, she had remembered to smear her eyes with liquid liner, wrap her hips in enough metal belts to refurbish a John Deere machine, and carefully paint each of her nails a different shade of black – but she forgot her lighter?
“Here,” I gave her a neon pink Zippo I’d had since the last time I was hounded by Marlboro promoters at ACE bar.
“Thanks,” she said, and after using it threw the lighter into the dark depths of Tompkins Square Park, provoking the muffled sounds of an annoyed rat. Maybe she thought it was a large, cold, match. Read more…
Michelle RickGood morning, East Village.
Start the day by casting envious eyes in the direction of Jimmy McMillan, the “Rent is Too Damn High” gubernatorial candidate who – according to Gothamist – is renting an East Village apartment for his son at a cost of only $900 per month.
In other news, like the rest of the city we can’t help noticing that the CMJ Music Marathon is underway with over 1,200 live performances, mainly in downtown New York and Brooklyn. Lit Lounge and the Bowery Poetry Club are among the East Village venues hosting performances, but the musicians and fans are everywhere. The festival runs through Saturday, so there’s still time to catch a few dozen shows.
Speaking of music, especially of the loud variety, EV Grieve updates on us on the planned Halloween protest against pressure from Community Board 3 to reduce the quantity and volume on live music in Tompkins Square Park. We plan to be there.
Finally, a striking piece of visual history. It’s easy to walk by Alphabet Café on the corner of East 14th and Avenue B without giving the building a second thought. Vanishing New York has photographic evidence today that it has survived as a one-story structure for decades. How did the developers not notice this? And does anyone have an idea how old that first photo is?
