Lower East Side holds onto rebel edge 50 years after punk was born — but CBGB’s now just a memory
nypost.commarked as a turning point – even if no one can pinpoint an exact moment punk began. On the 50th anniversary of that gig last month, those in the know celebrated its significance but the nostalgia made it tough to ignore how much the neighborhood has changed.In the 1970s, the Lower East Side was known as a haven for sex workers and drug addicts but the former CBGB’s on the Bowery at Second Avenue is now a John Varvatos.
Nearby there’s a Chase Bank, designer clothing stores and upscale coffee shops where almost no one is ordering just a plain, regular coffee.“It was filthy, really dangerous area, just horrible, junkies shooting up in the street, breaking into cars – but there was this great culture over here,” musician Mark Monwid, 60, said.It’s safer – and a bit pricier – these days, but the artist energy that made the neighborhood famous “hasn’t changed that much,” Monwid said.
There are some music venues and art galleries where the counterculture spirit is still strong, locals said.“The culture is still here, you’re going to see galleries, the art is super edgy,” said Monwid, who has lived in the area for more than 30 years. “The edge is still here, you cannot kill it.
I think it’s going to survive. The fashion is still edgy, it’s still palpable … It’s alive.”PUNK Magazine founder and cartoonist John Holmstrom said he’s actually surprised how little his beloved East Village has changed compared to some other neighborhoods in the Big Apple.“I still live in my crappy old tenement building,” he told The Post in a recent interview. “The whole block is filled with them, the whole area is filled with them.
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