IT'S ALL THE STREETS YOU CROSSED NOT SO LONG AGO

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Weird news travels fast

I was gonna save these links for the intro to my next post on ads, but I may as well round them up here, in reverse order of how I found out about them.

Bleecker Bob's to become a Starbucks--via JVNY and GV Daily Photo. Thanks to Caryn Rose for the head's up. [UPDATE, mere seconds after my inital post--the Holiday is closing too!] [UPDATE 1/27/2012: Yesterday there was a NY Times article on this as well, which also stated that Southpaw is closing. Today JVNY reports that BB's is looking for space in the East Village.]

CBGB festival and talk of a possible revival of the club--via Bowery Boogie, Gothamist, EV Grieve, WCBS-FM, Brooklyn Vegan, and the Observer. Thanks for Bryan at This Ain't the Summer of Love for the alert.

The Court Tavern in New Brunswick to close--via the Village Voice blog.

Not news but interesting stuff from before my time--FB page for after-hours club the Nursery. Thanks to NY Rocks head honcho Ray S.

And hopefully this might cheer you up a little, or at least offer some useful distraction--go get lost within this massive NYU archive of Greenwich Village photos (link via Flaming Pablum).

Saturday, January 14, 2012

1969 Ads Revisited: Other Venues and Miscellany, Part 1

Here they are, old yet improved 1969 Voice ads! As with the 1967 revisions, I'm doing this mainly to get the ads in a larger size, but I'm also stumbling upon a few things I missed during my first run-through.

If your hunger for more '60s counterculture NYC newsprint is insatiable, you're in luck. Over the next few weeks, The Local East Village Blog (a collaboration between the NY Times and the NYU Journalism School--yes, I'll hold my tongue on NYU overexpansion snark for the time being) will be running a series of articles on the history of the East Village Other. They're supposed to be "special weekend editions," but as I type very early on this Saturday morn the first one hasn't been uploaded quite yet. [ETA: It's now mid-afternoon and the first articles are up.] The online presentations are leading up to an exhibition entitled “Blowing Minds: The East Village Other, the Rise of Underground Comix and the Alternative Press, 1965-72." The show will kick off with a panel discussion and party on February 28. (Fear not if you can't make it to the opening, for apparently the panel will be livecast on the Local's site.) The companion website eastvillageother.org will soon include "archival material, ephemera, photographs, and EVO issues." Huzzah and thanks to Stephen F. on the Fillmore East Archives Facebook group for alerting me.

Also check out a detailed history of the Palm Gardens building (before and after the Group Image held court there) at the Grateful Dead venues blog, "They're dancing in Chicago, down in New Orleans."

1/2/69 issue:

On the Fillmore East Archives Facebook page, photographer John Chappina offered the following recollections of Dynamite: "Massive 3 or 4 floor club. I remember the owners came around Kings Highway and asked us what we thought and what we would like. We told them something like the Electric Circus. A place with music but if you wanted to talk to the opposite sex, some loungey type areas.