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
#187: Super City: New York and the History of Comic Books
#186 Hell's Kitchen: New York's Wild West
#185 Adventures on Governors Island
#184 The Flatiron Building: A Story from Three Sides
#183 Orchard Street: Life in the Lower East Side
#182 Mae West: "Sex" on Broadway
#181 Park Slope and the Story of Brownstone Brooklyn
#180 The Chelsea Piers and the Age of the Ocean Liner
#179 The Fight for Bryant Park
#178: The Crystal Palace: America's First World's Fair
#177 The Big History of Little Italy
#176 Billie Holiday's New York
#175 Bowery Boys 2014 Year In Review
#174 American Kicks: A History of the Rockettes
#173 Ruins of the World's Fair: New York State Pavilion
#172 Ghost Stories of Brooklyn
#171 The Keys to Gramercy Park
#170 The Life and Death of Rudolph Valentino
#169 The Tallest Building In New York: A Short History
#168 DUEL! Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton
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