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
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Walt Whitman in New York and Brooklyn
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#281 The Treasures of Downtown Brooklyn
#280 House of Mystery: The Story of the Collyer Brothers
#279 A New Year in Old New York: From Times Square to Chinatown
#278 Newark vs. LaGuardia: The Tale of Two Airports
#277 The New York Comedy Scene: A Marvelous History
#276 Murder on Bond Street: Who Killed Dr. Burdell?
#275 Return to Tin Pan Alley: Saving American Music History
#274 Ghost Stories of Hell's Kitchen
#273 Peter Stuyvesant and the Fall of New Amsterdam
#272 Life in New Amsterdam
#271 Counter Culture: Diners, Automats, and Luncheonettes in New York
#270 Heaven on the Hudson: A History of Riverside Park
#269 Harry Houdini and the Golden Age of Magic in New York
#268 The Astonishing Saga of the Atlantic Cable
#267 Broadway: The Story of a Street
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