Privacy advocates and the U.S. Government are up in arms about Google Street Maps, but here at Rock Daily we still can’t get enough of them. Last week, with help from Street Maps, we took you on our first Sixty-Second Roll Tour; here are five more major rock and roll monuments. Today, some of them are banks and Honda dealerships, but we prefer to remember them as they were.
Dylan’s New York House (the green door)
In 1969, tired of obsessed fans pestering him in Woodstock, Bob Dylan took his family back to New York and bought this house on MacDougal Street – which is about a minute away from the coffeehouses he frequented a decade earlier. Unfortunately, A.J. Weberman, the king of all Dylan nuts, soon found out where he lived and began digging through his garbage. Webberman also brought hordes of other Dylan followers to his front door. Eventually Dylan had enough and beat Weberman up right outside the apartment.
Fillmore East
From 1968 until 1971 this building (check out an older photo here,) currently an Emigrant bank, was perhaps the greatest concert hall on The East Coast. Opened by legendary concert promoter Bill Graham as a sister venue to the Fillmore West in San Francisco, pretty much every major rock band of that era played the 3,600-capacity theater - from Pink Floyd to The Who to Led Zeppelin to The Byrds. In March of 1971 the Allman Brothers Band cut At Fillmore East Here. In the Eighties the building housed legendary gay club The Saint.
Fillmore West
Graham moved the Fillmore from its original location on Geary Street to this site in 1968 and called it The Fillmore West. The Grateful Dead played the final show there on July 2, 1971. It’s now a Honda dealership.
Chelsea Hotel
This hotel, once the tallest building in New York City, has been a haven for artists of all kinds. Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, Mark Twain, Arthur C. Clarke and countless others all lived here. Leonard Cohen’s song “Chelsea Hotel” is about an encounter he had with Janis Joplin in one of the rooms. On October 12, 1978, Sid Vicious was staying there with Nancy Spungen when she was found stabbed to death. Sid was arrested, but he died of a heroin overdose while out on bail. The room the couple shared on the first floor was turned into four other rooms, after management got tired of visitors asking to stay there.
CBGB
CBGB (Country Bluegrass Blues and Other Music For Uplifting Gormandizer) opened in 1973. Hilly Kristal, its owner and founder, originally envisioned it as a country and bluegrass bar, but within two years it became ground zero for the burgeoning punk movement. Television, The Ramones, Patti Smith, Blondie, the Talking Heads, the Dead Boys and many more played here regularly during their early days. On October 15, 2006 Patti Smith played the final show at CBGB which was forced to close due to a long standing dispute with the landlord. Kristal plans on opening a new CBGB in Vegas.
Images: Google Maps
