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
#91 Haunted Tales of New York
#90 Columbia University
#89 Chelsea Hotel
#88 Ellis Island: The Immigrant Story
#87 The Kings of New York Pizza
#86 Boss Tweed and the Glory Days of Tammany Hall
#88 Joseph Papp vs Robert Moses: The Story of Shakespeare in the Park
#84 Prospect Park
#83 Henry Hudson and the European Discovery of Mannahatta
#82 Roosevelt Island
#81 The Puck Building "What Fools These Mortals Be!"
#80 Pennsylvania Station
#79 The Whyos: Gang of New York
#78 The Great Fire of 1835
#77 Freedomland U.S.A.: New York's Weirdest Theme Park
#76 Woolworth Building
#75 Williamsburg(h), Brooklyn
# 49 LaGuardia Airport and Early New York Flight
#74 Ziegfeld!
#73 Webster Hall 'The Devil's Playhouse'
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