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
#379 How Chelsea Became a Neighborhood
#378 The Ansonia: Only Scandals In The Building
The Real Mrs. Astor: Ruler or Rebel?
Rewind: West Side Story and the Making of Lincoln Center
Gilded Age or Gilded Cage? (With The Bowery Boys)
#377 The Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree
Introducing: The Gilded Gentleman
#376 Skid Row: The Bowery of the Forgotten
Toxic Turkey Day: HISTORY This Week
#375 The Great Bank Robbery of 1878
#374 Gotham's Greatest Ghost Stories
#373 New York Underground: The Story of Cemeteries
#372 The Shuberts: The Brothers Who Built Broadway
Rewind: Revolutionary Fire/The End of Nathan Hale
#371 A Visit to Little Syria: An Immigrant Story
#370 Tragic Muse: The Life of Audrey Munson
#369 Last Dance at the Hotel Pennsylvania
#368 Henry Bergh's Fight for Animal Rights in Gilded Age New York
#367 The Ice Craze: How the Ice Business Transformed New York
#366 North Brother Island: New York's Forbidden Place
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
Irish Songs with Ken Murray
History Obscura
Historycal: Words that Shaped the World
The Rest Is History
Rachel Maddow Presents: Ultra