In 1974 Hilly Crystal was fixing up his BOWERY club called CBGB-OMFUG (Country, Bluegrass, Blues, and Other Music for Uplifting Gourmandizers) when Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd approached him.  Verlaine and Lloyd had formed a band called “Television” the year before and were looking for a regular venue to play. Unbeknownst to Crystal “Television” was to become the US founders of the art punk and post-punk scene. CBGBs soon became a testing ground for other new groups like the Stillettoes/Blondie, the Ramones, the Dictators, the Heartbreakers, Suicide, Rocket From the Tombs/Peru Ubu, the Dead Boys, Blondie and the Talking Heads. When CBGBs hosted the first of its festivals of unsigned bands in July 1975, The Ramones drew the attention of The New York Times, The Village Voice, Rolling Stone, The Aquarian, The SoHo Weekly News, and the NME and Melody Maker from England (: two magazines I avidly read as a teen). CBGBs was on the map. 32 years later the club closed down (October 13, 2006). The same day this photograph was taken.

RIP - CBGBs. Long live the BOWERY!