One of the places i wanted to hit during my weekend last weekend was cbgb. i had to, as my brother benjy wanted a shirt from there. he was in new york city briefly in the 1990s & i mean briefly, as him & my youngest brother joey were coming back from boston & passed through times square on the way back to my then-parents home in morton grove, illinois. i promised him i would, as my brother benjy is a great brother. i often refer to him the "ringo starr" of our family, as he is the only member of our tribe that gets along with everybody.
so, after i finished my gig at the bowery poetry club, that's exactly where stew (see new york tales>post trip talk-act 2>howard, howard, howard for more info on stew) & i went, directly across the street to cbgb. cbgb is a legendary club. that written statement alone is a huge understatement, as many many bands made their start there, most notably the ramones & the talking heads. even my throat-singing teacher performed there in the late 1990s with the band he was in. the club's outside hasn't changed that much, seemingly the inside hasn't either & that made me feel pretty good that since the last time i was there, 1983, that it still remained intact.
stew noticed there was a singer audition at the club, so he borrowed a guitar and signed up to try out, as i gazed around the place. there's probably only three things you can do at the club, which is drink, watch the bands & buy merchandise, which is their biggest selling point. wearing a cbgb shirt is classy, puts hair on your head (i wish) & in general, makes you look like a million bucks because you've been to a great place.
but great places don't always last, as i picked up a flyer the club was handing out. seems that cbgb's landlord the brc (bowery residents' committee) wants to shove the club out so they can build upon their homeless shelter. the fight between the brc & cbgb primarily centers around back rent & other financial situations. what an irony that is, as the bowery was once one of the most famous landmarks in the world, the ultimate skid row. of course now that yuppie-types & people with loads of money have regentrified the place, ultimately shoving out artists & residents who lived in the area, just so they could have a convenient atm, walgreen's or mcdonald's around the corner from them. how noble of them.
but this regetrification is happening all over the united states, chicago included. friends of mine who lived in wicker park & rogers park for that matter, were shoved out of their homes after realtors saw a cash crop before their very eyes. they bought older buildings, rehabbed them and charged outrageous prices to live where they formally lived. it's too bad in chicago & the surrounding suburbs don't have rent control like the way they do in new york. it's hard enough for some to make a decent living wage, another world problem that seemingly a great idea, may never come to past.
now of course, if you're a true struggling artist, you're either living at home or out on the streets somewhere or you have a job that supports your habit. not a lot of us have the old standby of a rich wife, husband, partner, girlfriend, boyfriend or relatives that can support our careers. i lucked out when i did, living in chicago with other artists in the three-bedroom apartment, we all made ends meet & supported our lifestyles, even for a long stretch of unemployment i endured before i landed my next job. ironically, that building i lived in now has gone condo. condo without parking spaces. that's a laugh! the building i moved out of before i moved into evanston (suburb of chicago), i managed to get cheap rent, a two bedroom in chicago for $550! unheard of, i know, but i received that rate, because the building was going condo.
seems a lot of people, mayor richard m. daley included don't appreciate the history of old buildings, unless of course it's a landmark or a place he hung out as a child and wants them torn down. this is not a new attitude, as many folks are like that. knock down the old buildings & build the new buildings for twice the price & just triple the rent.
yep, buildings can become eyesores, but that's just what the media does to you, television & newspapers especially, painting up a negative stance on what is wrong with a building, as opposed to everything that is so right with it. once an opinion forms in a person's mind, there's no turning back. i know that for a long time mayor daley wanted "motel row" along lincoln ave in the far northern reaches of chicago torn down & replace them with newer hotels. but those old motels add a lot of charm to the area. bands i know have stayed in those motels, as higher priced ones tend to be out of their range.
sure drug dealers & prostitutes hang out there, but they hang out everywhere, not just at motels & old buildings. it's a tried & true method of the press to focus on that. it wins influence & does changes minds of people & that's just wrong. one of my favorite sros (single resident occupancy) on the near north side of chicago, is the cass hotel. the cass is best known for the hideout of the late mass murderer richard speck, who in the late 1960s, strangled eight student nurses & hid out there. the architecture is truly stunning & the building adds a lot of character to that neighborhood, which is surrounded by a bunch of chain stores & newer coffee shops.
chains stores can do a lot to ruin the atmosphere of a neighborhood, even if it does bring money into the community & thankfully there are enough examples of neighborhood residents who have fought back & kept corporate chainstores like starbucks & wal-marts out of their neighborhoods!
but back to cbgb's. here's what you can do: i have pasted the basic information, as well as their website into my blog for you to read and check out. if you're one that believes that cbgb should stay where it should stay, god bless you! if on the other hand, if you believe that progress should never stand behind the old guard, well...hello! i can't wait to sit down with you at that great old restaurant standee just beyond the granville el in chicago on granville in & swap histories with you, honest histories, that is!
http://www.cbgb.com/save_cbgb.htm
To the Musicians, Fans and Friends of CBGB; My Landlord is "BRC"
These are the people that have control over whether I stay or go. The current money situation and legal status of the club, despite what Muzzy Rosenblatt says, is not in negotiation. It is in the courts to be decided by a judge. I am not going to cast aspersions on the representatives of the BRC, as they have on me. I only wish the problem be solved so we can both "do our thing"If you want us here, the BRC has to be persuaded that a gradual increase in rent is feasible.
Hilly Kristal, Owner of CBGB
Send a letter to The Mayor's Office asking Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg if he's prepared to say "CBGB can be closed down because they can't pay 40-50 thousand dollars per month rent to a non profit organization that is funded by the city, state and federal government to the tune of 23 million dollars per year."
Muzzy Rosenblatt, Executive Director
Bowery Residents' Committee
324 Lafayette Street, 8th Floor
New York, NY 10012
Phone: 212-533-5700
Fax: 212-533-1893
website: www.bowrescom.org
Email: info@bowrescom.org
New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg
City Hall
New York, NY 10007
Phone: 311 or 212-639-9675
Fax: 212.788.2460
Email: http://www.nyc.gov/html/mail/html/mayor.html
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