Monday, October 20, 2008

Physical Graffiti 33 years later

From the WOW Report (via BoingBoing):

Artist Lou Cannizzaro went back to 96 St Marks Place in Manhattan 33 years after that location starred on the cover of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album. Robert Plant should have aged so well.





Wikipedia has this about the cover art:

The album's sleeve design features a photograph of a New York City tenement block, with interchanging window illustrations. The album designer, Peter Corriston, was looking for a building that was symmetrical with interesting details, that was not obstructed by other objects and would fit the square album cover. He said:

We walked around the city for a few weeks looking for the right building. I had come up a concept for the band based on the tenement, people living there and moving in and out. The original album featured the building with the windows cut out on the cover and various sleeves that could be placed under the cover, filling the windows with the album title, track information or liner notes.

The two buildings photographed for the album cover are located at 96 and 98 St. Mark's Place in New York City. But to enable it to fit, the building (which is actually a five-story building) had to be cropped out. So for the album cover it became a four-story building instead. The buildings used on the cover were the same that Keith Richards and Mick Jagger were filmed in front of in the Rolling Stones music video "Waiting on a Friend."

4 comments:

  1. There is a shop at the bottom of the building called "Physical Graffiti." Also, there is a new sign right on the side of the building that is really offensive for spa/massages.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi, I wanted to write you because I used to live at 98 St. Marks Pl. When they took the picture.. The guy sitting on the stoops was my babysitter ..Paulu. My mom told me he used to sit in with Janis Joplin. I would love to hear more stories. Thanks much.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I used to live at 98 St. Marks Pl. When they took the picture.. The guy sitting on the stoops was my babysitter ..Paulu. My mom had told me he used to sit in with Janis Joplin. I would love to hear more stories about the place.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi, I wanted to write you because I used to live at 98 St. Marks Pl. When they took the picture.. The guy sitting on the stoops was my babysitter ..Paulu. My mom told me he used to sit in with Janis Joplin. I would love to hear more stories.

    ReplyDelete

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