…the most popular pieces of subway art lies. Photo by Tom Powel Imaging (2004) Installed in 2000, Tom Otterness’ Life Underground features over 130 bronze sculptures emerging from the floors…
Read More…organization called the Weather Underground – or the Weathermen – were building bombs. The historic 1845 home was owned by the parents of one of the activists – Cathy Wilkerson…
Read MoreThe Village’s misfits, we know quite well, are very dedicated, special kinds of misfits. Lou Reed and the Velvet Underground certainly fall into this category. Everyone remembers when they were…
Read MoreOn April 1, 1966, the Velvet Underground and Nico began their residency at 19-25 St. Mark’s Place in the space that would become the Electric Circus, as part of Andy…
Read MoreOn January 30, 1968, the Velvet Underground released their second studio album, White Light/White Heat. Following the band’s first album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, released in 1967, the band…
Read More…of 18 West 11th Street, New York, New York, March 6, 1970. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah/Getty Images) The Weathermen, or the Weather Underground, had more connections to Greenwich Village…
Read More…Night. We have secured some of the best comics around – this isn’t amateur hour!!! Starting at 7pm (doors open at 6) at the Village Underground, 130 West 3rd Street, join GVSHP…
Read More…Throughout this blog series, “Downtown Underground” we will uncover the lovely murals, mosaics and installations that line the subway stations of our neighborhoods. In 1985 the MTA founded what was…
Read More…locations throughout lower Manhattan in the 19th century. From its earliest days it was part of the Underground Railroad, and was led by a series of radical black leaders who…
Read More…the underground.” Since 1992 Arcade, along with longtime collaborator Steve Zehentner, have created over ten full length shows that have toured around the world. Their latest show, Longing Lasts Longer,…
Read More…popular outside of the New York underground scene, The Velvet Underground and Reed’s legacy went on to greatly shape the future generations of rock and roll. The Velvet Underground. Photo…
Read More…Underground, the avant-garde rock group that he managed. In 1966, after touring with the multimedia extravaganza dubbed the Exploding Plastic Inevitable, the band recorded its debut album, The Velvet Underground &…
Read More…New York and you might end up in the underground, like people are always saying, ‘Oh, I wish I could be in the underground, but I’m not cool enough.’ Like, the…
Read More…‘Polski Dom Narodowy’ or ‘Polish National Home’, 23 St. Marks Place), where the Velvet Underground performed as part of Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable series of staged, multimedia events (held…
Read MoreLou Reed performing in 2004. The world mourned the passing of Lou Reed this past weekend at the age of 71. Front man of The Velvet Underground, Reed was born…
Read More…Dan Barasch collaborated over the concept of an underground park and explored the 117-year old historic Williamsburg Bridge underground trolley terminal, which extends east from the Bowery to the Williamsburg…
Read More…from a prison in California by dangling over a telephone wire and pulling himself out of the prison with help from the Weathermen Underground. He escaped to Algeria and spent…
Read More…Census. The church has been a strong supporter of and leader in civil rights activism, from the 19th century, when it was also a stop on the Underground Railroad and…
Read More…New York City has spawned countless artistic and political movements. Here Frank O’Hara caroused, Emma Goldman plotted, and the Velvet Underground wailed. But every generation of miscreant denizens believes that…
Read More…Richard Hell and the Voidoids, and the Dictators. The music’s roots also can be found in the neighborhood, especially from bands like the Velvet Underground and the New York Dolls,…
Read More…establishment of the American Red Cross, a prominent umbrella manufacturer, one of the oldest literary clubs in the United States, and the underground/avant garde Downtown film and video scene. Much…
Read More…it was New York’s first and only black church for decades, and a stop on the Underground Railroad. Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, and Frederick Douglass were all involved with Zion AME….
Read More…the infamous riots. 339 West 29th Street, a stop on the underground railroad and target of the 1863 draft riots, is still under scaffolding as the city investigates an illegal…
Read More…an 1845 Greek Revival townhouse was destroyed in an explosion. The explosion was caused by the domestic terrorist group Weather Underground, who were assembling a bomb in the basement. Three militants…
Read More… Page 10 of the report showing the Weathermen House at 18 West 11th Street The report shows new buildings approved in the district as early as 1972, not long…
Read More…the staff of The Anti-Slavery Standard as an editor for fourteen years and became a conductor for the Underground Railroad. Otis’ grandmother, Mary Otis Gay Willcox, was a well-known activist…
Read More…including Madonna, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, Cyndi Lauper, and more. Decades later, the club is still remembered as a legendary underground cultural space promoting art of all genres: from cinema…
Read More…some of the most important strains of the social and physical development of our city, with a special connection to the Underground Railroad, religious reconciliation and cooperation, and the historic…
Read MoreGoogle Street View of 19-25 St. Mark’s Place today Fifty years ago this week, the Velvet Underground released their second album, “White Light/White Heat.” Their darkest record, it was also…
Read More…Church. Shiloh was a leader in the abolitionist movement and a part of the Underground Railroad. For decades, it was led by a series of radical black ministers, including one…
Read More…Underground as the house band. Ginsberg and other East Village hipsters were known to frequent the Dom in its early days. Polski Dam Nardowy (Polish National Home) at 23 St…
Read More…today and practice their new routines. Owner Noam Dworman also owns the Village Underground, the Olive Tree Cafe, and the Fat Black Pussycat. But it all started back in 1960, when…
Read More…this time that underground music icon and Warhol superstar Nico lived upstairs at 101 Avenue A, while she was performing with the Velvet Underground. In 1979 the present occupant, the Pyramid Club,…
Read More…Mailer. Secret Lives of the Underground Railroad in New York City, Sydney Howard Gay, Louis Napoleon and the Record of Fugitives. Photo courtesy of Amazon.com Burger was born on November…
Read More…underground labyrinth of labs and classroom. Second, in exchange for the loss of public parks, playgrounds, gardens and dog runs, N.Y.U. will have to allow public access to an atrium…
Read More…there were any significant archeological resources underground. Of course, this is exactly what there turned out to be. The graveyard of the Spring Street Presbyterian Church was located on this…
Read More…underground subway system in the world, built in 1896, (London’s is the oldest) and the original station entrances in New York City were modeled after these. Plans for standard NYC…
Read More…for the removal of “three (3) underground storage tank systems”, though no change in use was recorded. The latest issued permit for this lot dates from March of this year…
Read More…chapel, and a performance venue with the Velvet Underground as the house band? The buildings at 19-23 St. Marks Place have been altered over the years diluting the handsome architecture…
Read More…sides were just up in arms”) and the new structure replacing the house destroyed by the Weatherman bomb explosion on West 11th Street. The Weathermen house, destroyed on West 11th…
Read More…more outlandish–and the costumes, skimpier and skimpier. Although Prohibition could have killed the momentum of the parties, in fact, it had the opposite effect. As liquor consumption was driven underground,…
Read More…was published in 1973 it sold 70,000 copies, making it an underground phenomenon. Her work is known for being one of the early literary lesbian novels. Many lesbian readers have…
Read More…Jackie Curtis performance at the Slugger Ann bar, provided by publisher and editor-in-chief Leonard Abrams. According to The Downtown Pop Underground (order it online, or from a local independent bookstore): Jackie Curtis made the…
Read More…of an excavation next door at 36 Commerce Street in the late 1950s that revealed a underground river below the building with thousands of turtles living in it. The theater…
Read More…styles of country, bluegrass and blues, CBGB became an incubator for underground groups in the punk and rock scene. The Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, and the Talking Heads all got…
Read More…liquor consumption was driven underground, Webster Hall became a speakeasy, and the legends of the parties grew. Gay and lesbian Villagers first attended the parties of accepting organizations like the…
Read More…Jim Morrison, the New York Dolls, the Velvet Underground, John Lennon, Yoko Ono, Andy Warhol, Baby Jane Holzer, Nico, Viva, and Edie Sedgewick. The clothier frequently outfitted musicians playing at…
Read More…praises sung in BrickUnderground, Curbed, 6sqft, Viewing NYC, and The Architect’s Newspaper, among many others. History is never finite; sites and stories in our neighborhoods continue to surface with connections…
Read More…Limbo became not just the place to shop, but the place to be. Clientele included Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, the New York Dolls, the Velvet Underground, John Lennon,…
Read More…are underground rooms, arched and walled with brick. A slab bearing the epitaph is placed over the head of the stone stairway which leads to the surface . . ….
Read More…that directly links Robert Bowne’s niece, Mary Bowne Parsons, her sons, and the home, to the Underground Railroad. A letter dated September 28, 1850, soon after the passage of the…
Read More…known as the “Freedom Church” because of its prominent role in the abolitionist movement, and many conference churches – including the original A.M.E. church – became stations on the Underground…
Read More…Street (as long as he wore long sleeves), lived with Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, and hung out with Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Bob Dylan, and The Velvet Underground. He…
Read More…made my work.” So begins Village Preservation’s newly released Oral History interview with the unparalleled “Queen of the Underground,” Penny Arcade. Catch Penny on stage celebrating her oral history on…
Read More…sanctuary for counterculture misfits and underground rock. CBGB became the epicenter of the punk music genre and launched the careers of The Ramones, the Talking Heads, Blondie, Television, Richard Hell…
Read More…commercial artist for advertising and created a series of posters for the London Underground. Around the start of the First World War, Sarg, his wife, and his daughter faced anti-German…
Read More…Heights. A plaque on 157 Willow Street says that it hid an underground storage space that was used to hide runaway slaves as they escaped northward to Canada. Miller left…
Read More…I always say that the beginning of the FUN was when I met FAB 5 FREDDY in 1981. I was starring in my punk rock spectacular Underground U.S.A. in it’s…
Read More…the original ceramic patterns of 1904 station mosaics—and made installations at the station’s underground level. To learn more about the history and architecture of the Astor Place station, click here….
Read More…Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers.” The “Other Music” quickly outpaced the country, bluegrass, and blues, and CBGB became an influential incubator for underground groups in the punk rock scene. The…
Read More…looking frankly at the realities of gay and underground life. Read more about Ginsburg in the East Village here. Read more about Ginsberg here. The Saint, 105 Second Avenue Dancing…
Read More…Collective, directed by Teddy Bergman; “Best New American Theatre Work” OBIE Award-winner, Underground Railroad Game by Jennifer Kidwell and Scott R. Sheppard with Lightning Rod Special, directed by Taibi Magar…
Read More…lower level (now filled with percussion instruments). It is here where Midge is introduced to the underground party records downstairs. Party records were a sub-genre of comedy filled with raunchier…
Read More…As lead singer and songwriter for the Velvet Underground and a renowned solo artist, Lou Reed invented alternative rock. His music, at once a source of transcendent beauty and coruscating…
Read More…non-sectarian burial grounds in Manhattan, this historic cemetery contains 258 underground burial vaults. Many people of note were laid to rest here, including Uriah Scribner, father of the publisher; Aaron Clark,…
Read More…those on Second, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Avenues. Those original elevated trains were slower, smaller, and ran on old infrastructure while the underground subway was comparably sleek, new, and clean….
Read MoreZoom of the 1852 Dripps map of Manhattan, showing the proximity of downtown cemeteries, via David Rumsey Map Collection Most New Yorkers spend some time underground every day as part of…
Read More…underground service. As planned, the new “Independent” train line put the Ninth Avenue El out of business, and most of the line was dismantled in 1940, with the final section…
Read More…underground formed here, and painters, writers, and jazz musicians joined forces to stage an assault on the very definitions of art, music, literature, and theater.” In fact, those who played…
Read More…to its years as the residence of model/singer Nico, the vocalist on the Velvet Underground’s first album. 9. A Radical “Servant of God” Maryhouse today, via Village Preservation Depending upon…
Read More…still able to aid the abolitionist cause by becoming a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad in the 1840s. John Brown Mural at Kansas State Capitol by John Steuart Curry. In…
Read More…with avant-garde theaters, experimental art galleries, and underground music venues popping up throughout the neighborhood. The Times article stated “Another old Village tradition – the off-Broadway theatre – is also…
Read More…the establishment provided a notable home and nest for beat poets, comedians, and folk musicians alike looking to hone their craft. This small, underground venue gave Bob Dylan his first job, playing…
Read More…Ritchie Havens, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and the Velvet Underground. It is still a popular music venue, with a house band playing five nights a week. In December 2016,…
Read More…on the school’s enormous and bare west-facing wall, which was prominently visible, because it faced a block-long, city-owned lot along Hudson Street that had been vacant during the decades-long, underground…
Read More…the group obtain a wind generator previously used to pump up water from underground on a Midwestern farm. With no permit in hand and no intention to seek one, the…
Read More…of underground and counterculture movements. The Eye appeared at just the right time, capturing the rise of several influential scenes as they flourished in the bohemian landscape of the village….
Read More…the masses to underground forms she mined and popularized. The Widow Marycke — One of a pioneering group of African Americans who formed the first free black settlement in North…
Read More…and helped introduce the masses to underground forms she mined and popularized. The Widow Marycke — One of a pioneering group of African Americans who formed the first free black…
Read More…like Mad, and sold his comics on street corners. Before long, he became involved with the underground, countercultural comix scene, contributing the publications including The East Village Other, previously located…
Read More…it was depressing business and property values. In 1936, work started on the underground Sixth Avenue Line. The El was officially closed on December 4, 1938 and razed during 1939;…
Read More…by association to multiple waves of countercultural movements that took root in the neighborhood. Customers found there a go-to place for underground magazines, cigarettes, and, of course, their legendary egg…
Read More…the crowd. Gay power had surfaced. Sick and tired of police harassment, of prehistoric sodomy laws, of “park protection” in Queens (Queens!), and of vicious busts in the underground haunts…
Read More…sexual education and exploration and that his actions largely criminalized radical expressions of sexuality, driving BDSM & Queer cultures underground and further exposing their members to sexually transmited infections. Freddie…
Read More…a sitar of his making. Which is not to say that nothing has changed there. Before the pandemic, every Thursday night at 8pm they would host an underground open mic,…
Read More…the block once believed the street honored Sydney Howard Gay, the editor of The National Anti-Slavery Standard and a key operative in the Underground Railroad, which may have included stops…
Read More…the headquarters for the Yippies. Hoffman often spoke of the East Village as “the real hip underground, the successor to Greenwich Village as the heartland of bohemianism.” In Hoffman’s mind,…
Read More…and musicians like Andy Warhol and The Velvet Underground. Darling was an influential Downtown character throughout the 1960s, often interacting with its creative scene through Seymour Levy’s “Salon” on Bleecker…
Read More…Village, due in part to the existence of Minetta Creek, a stream that exists underground today, and partly follows the existing Minetta Street in the West Village. The Minetta creek…
Read More…modest Second System was proposed, but like its predecessor was never realized. Today, this station only exists in underground explorations of abandoned subway stations (as in this 2016 video by…
Read More…— were a NYC band who, according to their Wikipedia page: led the underground scene of the 1960s and became an important part of the American counterculture of that decade. The group is…
Read More…Prison rioters, and members of the Catonsville Nine, the Black Panther Party, the Weather Underground Organization, the American Indian Movement, and many other radical figures and civil rights efforts. William Kunstler, c. 1989….
Read More…the advantage of learning from a strong mentor. He came to New York in 1986 as a drummer, playing with underground bands in places like CBGB but paid the rent by working…
Read More…Pop Underground: Jackie Curtis made the most of the radical shifts happening downtown in the 1960s, when bohemians escaped rising rents in Greenwich Village by moving eastward. A Lower East…
Read More…10 feet underground. Most of its burials took place between 1830 and 1870, with the last burial taking place in 1937. Many of the original 2,000 burials were later reinterred…
Read More…the underground Sixth Avenue Line. The El was officially closed on December 4, 1938, and razed during 1939. Ninth Avenue El Ninth Avenue El stop at 14th Street, c. 1940. Photo…
Read More…and collaborator Ted Berrigan, who lived on Second Street between Avenues C and D, was a mainstay at these parties. Friends of the Velvet Underground and Andy Warhol were in…
Read More…include the home of a famed counterculture icon; a Puerto Rican cafe and theater; an underground shop where celebrity designers flocked for vintage fashion magazines; the office of the largest…
Read More…street at 315 Bowery is the former home of CBGBs. From 1973 to 2006, CBGBs was an influential incubator for underground groups in the punk and rock scene. From the GVSHP Image…
Read More…club eventually became known as an incubator for underground groups in the punk and rock scene, giving starts to such acts as The Ramones, Blondie, Patti Smith, and the Talking…
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