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
#169 The Tallest Building In New York: A Short History
#168 DUEL! Aaron Burr vs. Alexander Hamilton
#167 Cleopatra's Needle and the Freemasons Secret
#166 General Slocum Disaster 1904
#165 Ladies' Mile
#164 The Astor Place Riot
#163 South Street Seaport
#162 George Washington Bridge
#161 Fire Department of New York (FDNY)
#160 Tompkins Square Park
#159 The Broadway Musical: Setting the Stage
#158 Hotel Theresa: The Waldorf of Harlem
#157 Early Ghost Stories of Old New York
#156 The Boy Mayor of New York
#155 Sesame Street to Seinfeld: NYC TV 1969-2013
#154 New York in the Golden Age of Television
#153 NYC and the Birth of Television
#152 Bellevue Hospital
#151 The Limelight: Church, Nightclub and Mall
#150 Consolidation! Five Boroughs, One Big City
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