fucking awesome. stevie van zandt is a great guy and is so right about hilly. what a shame

mmm... Pop Rocks...

damn right Silvio

absolutely agree with above. it fucking eats at me that same day hilly died the city unvails a mojor promotion campaign for tourism. that bullshit with the posters at the airport and the tv spots with deniro etc. And yet they couldnt give a fucking dime to hilly or even listen to arguements about cbs being a landmark building, on this bullshit arguement that they dont landmark businesses. Same applies to all the other businesses that had to fold in recent years, like 2nd Ave Deli, Tonic, and the list goes on.

CBGB's has it's place in history as do many other NY music clubs however the place was a dump. I used to go there in the 70's in it's heyday to see The Ramones, T Heads, Tuff Darts, Blondie, John Cale etc.. but that was a long time ago. Businesses come and go. That's life. I never hear a word about Max's Kansas City or Hurrah's, equally important in my mind as CB's. I asked anyone that complained about CB's closing when was the last time you were there(not counting the closing shows)? All said "many years ago, no one I want to see plays there."

CBGB's has it's place in history as do many other NY music clubs however the place was a dump. I used to go there in the 70's in it's heyday to see The Ramones, T Heads, Tuff Darts, Blondie, John Cale etc.. but that was a long time ago. Businesses come and go. That's life. I never hear a word about Max's Kansas City or Hurrah's, equally important in my mind as CB's. I asked anyone that complained about CB's closing when was the last time you were there(not counting the closing shows)? All said "many years ago, no one I want to see plays there."

Max's is now a CVS in Union Square if I'm not mistaken, which sounds about right for NYC today.

I feel sorry about Hilly Kristal dying, but as the anonymous poster above say, tons of other historic clubs are gone and there was barely a whimper.

What's irritating about the CBGB's closing is the idea that it could never exist anywhere else. If Hilly Kristal closed the original location and then moved somewhere else, people would still show up. It's like Warhol's "Factory" in a way; never in one place but always the same.

And just look at the CBGB's t-shirt shop on Saint Marks. Suburban punks come from all over to have their picture taken there.

The fight for CBGB's was a joke. It died a long time ago.

will, Max's Kansas City is not a CVS but it's the Korean Deli in the middle of the block between 16th and 17th Street on Park Avenue South.

ah, ok, i knew it was within that area around the cvs. i used to work nearby there (post-max's) and every now and again I would think how strange it is that it used to be in the neighborhood given what union square looks like now.

2nd ave deli is coming back at 33rd @ 3rd ave soon. it'll keep the name.

I'm stoked for the Springsteen show.

if van zandt really wanted to save cbgb he could have done it single handedly by paying it's rent for a year (as could any one of many other countless celebrities) but i didn't see him step to the plate.

he really expected the city to rescue it? it was another unprofitable business that couldn't cover it's rent, even after all the fundraisers.

$65,000 a month rent?!

here is the source article: http://www.amny.com/news/local/am-cbgb0829,0,7211022.story

Van Zandt is a stand-up guy, but my feeling is that yes, this club passed it's heyday a LONG time ago. It has since been a relic-club for tourists, but you'd be lucky to find more then a handful of people in front of the stage on any given night. Alot of mainstream supposed 'alternative' bands stopped by in the days since to play a secret show there, to reclaim cred so to speak, but in the end Kristal should have purchased the club back in the 70's when nobody would have touched the Bowery with a 10 ft pole. He wouldn't have spent his last days fighting eviction from the city.

65,000 * 12 = 780,000

yes, even stevie van zandt has a LOT more than that.

it might be a lot to me or you, but it's not a lot of money for those in the entertaiment industry.

warren buffet has given $40,000,000,000 (40 Billion) in his lifetime.

bill gates has given away $28 billion.

even oprah has given over 300 million away

we're talking about less than 1 million here, yet no one step forward...

Agreed, Hilly probably didn't have the money but a hell of a lot of people who are complaining about the closing easily had a million they could have given.

It's sad when successful multi-millionaires blame the city when they could have saved the club themselves.

A city bailout would have meant using taxpayer dollars from everyone, including the many people in nyc living in poverty. That's awfully hard to justify to someone living in the Bronx.

"Hilly probably didn't have the money..."

Did you read the obituary for Hilly Kristal in the ny times? Here's an interesting bit:

"By 2005 he was making $2 million a year through his CBGB Fashion line."

Even though in the end the club might not have been profitable, the brand ("CBGB") still was. The store selling the licensed shirts survived and Hilly made money on every shirt sold.

I still see lots of people wearing the merchandise around town.

So the bottom line appears to be that Hilly did have the money to keep the club in business but he just didn't want to take the loss himsself.

His supposed plan to move the club to Vegas appears to be motivated more out of making bigger profits rather than out of necessity.

I get a little tired of people saying CBs wasn't doing anything relevent in the final years. I saw some of the most progressive, experimental music around there thanks to Dee Pop's free jazz series. I saw Test, Other Dimensions, Eddie Gale band, Freedomland and dozens of others. Just like the punk scene circa 1975, no wand of blessing was waved by the corporates so you didn't know about it. Most of you need to be told that it is ok to like a band. Nothing has changed in 30 years.

ok just forget all the other issues whether the club was relavant or not. the fact that it was a tourist destination for a lot of people that visited nyc would have made it imperative that the city took some interest in it, no? the historical significance alone made it worth saving. maybe the city should have stepped in, bought out hilly and turned it into non-profit or museum. just because the city hasnt done it up to this point is no reason not to do it now. why dont we have our own version of national trust in britain which for ex turned lennons and mccartneys childhood houses in liverpool into museums. they can still do this they should have got all the people to sit down and work something out.

and btw- going back to 65,000 dollar rent per month. for that space i think the guy who is asking that is out of his mind, and i dont see anyone renting it for that money. remember the shelter is not going away any time soon, unless they are planning to sell it as well. a comparable space in that area rents for probably around 5 or 6 grand. $13,000 even was price gouging. you can rent an empty factory in long island city with probably twice the footage for 5 thousand for gods sakes.

11:47, you're right. Rent's WAY too high. I mean, that side of the street only had foot traffic BECAUSE of CBs....is there anything on that side of the street worth walking to?

phebe's is on that side of the street, but thats two blocks away.

you right, probably better idea to walk on the other side of the street from there esp if youre a woman and dont want to get harassed by the homeless dudes from the shelter. the idea that they will put some high rent stores there 5th ave. style is laughable.

Perhaps this isn't the post for it, but the thing that riles me up is everyone complaining about Tonic closing, but noone seems to ever go to shows at The Stone (John Zorn's new performance space over on Ave C). Out of the 5 or so shows I have been to there so far there have maybe been 20-25 people tops (probably about 50 people could fit in there total). 2 shows I have been to were barely attended (10 people tops).

If you are going to complain about the lack of certain venues for artistic expression, why not support the ones that are in place already? The people who played at CBGB's didn't disappear, right? Well, maybe they left NYC, but that is a different problem relatively unrelated to the venue closing, right?

I'm just wondering why Stevie is responsible for paying the rent for CBGB. Let's face it: Hilly was a terrible, terrible businessman. CBGB Records, the Anderson Theater, hell, even CBGB pizza was questionable.

How many times would we have had to save the place before Hilly stopped running it into the ground?

God bless and rest in peace.

If you go to the former Max's building, don't look in the Korean deli, look in the vestibule of the entrance to the residences upstairs.

The point is that Stevie wasn't responsible for the rent, but neither was the city (so Stevie shouldn't be criticizing the city for not stepping in.)

It's hard to justify taking tax money from someone struggling to support a family and make ends meet in the Bronx to support a multi-millionaire's music club/private label business because he doesn't want to pay his increased rent.

And yes, Hilly would have benefitted greatly if the city took over his money losing club business, because he was making millions on the CBGB private label business at the same time.

to anon 9:23 - everybody would have benefitted if cbs was still open- the people in the neighborhood, the "city", hilly, and even the proverbial struggling mother in the bronx. cbs would have been generating revenue / tourism dollars, people would have jobs workind there, and you would have something there that the city would have been proud of, that the whole world knows about. It should have been turned into a museum / art space / performance space, it would have been perfect.

also if youre talking wasted millions what makes more sense, investing in cbs as performing arts center/museum or the millions and millions of dollars that are being wasted at the wtc site?

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your these returning vnhxtrrpczayd was very pleasant or desirable no magnet drew me.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your these returning vnhxtrrpczayd was very pleasant or desirable no magnet drew me.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your these returning vnhxtrrpczayd was very pleasant or desirable no magnet drew me.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your these returning vnhxtrrpczayd was very pleasant or desirable no magnet drew me.

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your these returning vnhxtrrpczayd was very pleasant or desirable no magnet drew me.