New York Rock City

This city is by far one of the best cities I have ever visited. There is so much culture, shopping, and rock history, I was in heaven. Some of the best rock clubs we went to were: Arlene's Grocery, Iggy's, B.B. Kings Blues Club http://www.bbkingblues.com/index.shtml, Mercury Lounge, 3 of Cups, the Continental http://www.continentalnyc.com/, Nice Guy Eddies has a huge Kiss mural, Motor City Bar http://www.motorcitybar.com/home.html, Julep has great poles for dancing on the bar, and we went to McSorley's Ale House (the oldest pub in NY, John Lennon used to drink Ale there).

The Times Square area has a Hard Rock Cafe, MTV, and Radio City Music Hall.  We went for a carriage ride in Central Park to see Strawberry Fields, the John Lennon Memorial. It was surreal seeing it in person.  We also visited the Morrison Hotel in SOHO to see fine art music photography of the Doors, the Beatles, the Stones and various other artists. The Time Werner Center also has some great 3-D pictures of Aerosmith, Rolling Stones, and Jimi Hendrix.

We went to the Chelsea Hotel http://www.hotelchelsea.com/. The hotel has been home to some famous musicians such as Patti Smith, Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Anthony Kiedis and of course Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen stayed in room 100 where she was found dead from whichever theory you believe. I read "Chelsea Horror Hotel" by Dee Dee Ramone before I went, and decided to not stay there for a night or two. He thought it was haunted by Sid Vicious, Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan when he lived in the hotel.

We went on the Rock Junket walking tour in New York City's East Village. It has rock culture history of rock, punk and glam from 3 genres. It was hosted by Bobby Pinn, a rock 'n' roll historian. I would highly suggest this tour if you ever make it out to New York. He has also written a book on NY rock history. His website is http://www.rockjunket.com/.

Some of the places we visited on the tour were CBGB's and The Fillmore East's former site's, Joey Ramone's and Iggy Pop's former apartment's and Joey Ramone Street. We went to the Continental where Joey had his birthday parties. Joey's last show was at the Continental, December 11, 2000. We went to St. Mark's Place where the two buildings were photographed for Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album cover. St. Mark's Hotel http://www.stmarkshotel.net/ is where GG Allin used to live, and where the Rolling Stones shot their video for 'Waiting for a Friend'. We went to the former site of the Dom, Andy Warhol's Electric Circus, where The Velvet Underground and Jimi Hendrix used to play. We saw the Gem Spa where the New York Dolls shot the picture for their first album and the Joe Strummer memorial mural, The Future is Unwritten.

After the tour we went to Swifts for a few cocktails before going back to shop at Trash and Vauderville at 4 Saint Mark's Place for some rock 'n' roll clothing, CBGB's store, Ian's and Generation Records for some New York Dolls, Clash, and Sex Pistols DVD's. We also found the former basement where Jimi Hendrix's Electric Lady Studios was where the Clash recorded Combat Rock. We went to Love Saves the Day, they have life-size Kiss mannequins there. Around the corner was also a great store called Enz, Sid Vicious' boots where supposed to be displayed there, but she said she had them at home. But the owner did have some great pictures and stories to tell us about everyone who shopped there, as it was the first punk store opened in the area.

The trip was rock 'n' roll to the end. I was stranded due to the snow at the La Guardia airport. There was a great bar in the airport called Jet Rock. They had on display a Bon Jovi guitar, Alive II and Lies, Lies, Lies gold albums, and various other cool rock memorabilia there. New York is truly a great rock city!

In Memory

Eric Carr – Cedar Hill Cemetery Newburgh, New York

Joey Ramone -  Hillside Cemetary 
Lyndhurst, Bergen County
New Jersey

Johnny Thunders - Mount Saint Mary Cemetary
Flushing, New York
Plot: Section 9, Grave R78-82

Jerry Nolan - Mount Saint Mary Cemetary
Flushing, New York
Plot: 24a-89

Gone Too Soon.