The rebirth of the East Village in the late 1970s and the flowering of a new and original New York subculture -- what Edmund White called "the Downtown Scene" -- arose from the shadow of urban devastation and was anchored by a community that reclaimed its own deteriorating neighborhood.
In the last episode (Creating the East Village 1955-1975) this northern corner of New York's Lower East Side became the desired home for new cultural venues -- nightclubs, cafes, theaters, and bars -- after the city tore down the Third Avenue Elevated in 1955.
By the mid-1970s, however, the high had worn off. The East Village was in crisis, one of the Manhattan neighborhoods hit hardest by the city’s fiscal difficulties and cutbacks. It had become a landscape of dark, unsafe streets and buildings demolished in flame.
But the next generation of creative interlopers (following the initial stampede of Greenwich Village beatniks and hippies) built upon the legacies of East Village counter-culture to create poems, music, paintings, and stage performances heavily influenced by the apocalyptic situations around them.
This was something truly distinct, a creative scene that was thoroughly and uniquely an East Village creation -- punk and hardcore, murals and graffiti, fashion and drag. In this episode Greg hits the streets of the East Village in a special live-on-the-streets event, with musician and tour guide Krikor Daglian (of True Tales of NYC), exploring the secrets of the recent past -- from the origins of skateboarding to the seeds of the American alternative rock scene.
FEATURING: CBGB, Supreme, the Pyramid, Club 57, Niagara, 7B, Brownies, and many others
AND special guests Bill Di Paola from the Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space and Ramon 'Ray' Alvarez from Ray's Candy Store
ALSO: Check out our Walking The East Village playlist, curated by Krikor and Greg -- on Spotify
Rewind: The Destruction of Penn Station
Rewind: The Construction of Penn Station
#348 Cheers! The Stories of Four Fabulous Cocktails
Rewind: Historic Vaccines -- The End of Polio and Smallpox
#347 Steam Heat! A Gilded Age Miracle
Rewind: The City in Flames - The Great Fire of 1835
#346 The Beatles Invade New York!
Rewind: The Curious Case of Typhoid Mary
#345 LaGuardia's War on Pushcarts: The Creation of Essex Street Market
Rewind: On The Radio: A History of the Airwaves
#344 Ghostbusters (Bowery Boys Movie Club)
#343 Literary Horrors of New York City
#342 Ghost Stories of Old New York (ALIVE at Joe's Pub)
#341 The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Rewind: The Mystery of the Central Park Obelisk
#340 The Real Life Adventures of Tom Thumb
Rewind: The Revolutionary Tavern of Samuel Fraunces
#339 James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal
Rewind: The American Museum of Natural History
#338 A New Deal for the Arts: Murals, Music and Theatrical Mayhem
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