Photos by Stacie Joy
Last evening, Village Preservation unveiled a plaque outside the former residence of Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs at 206 E. Seventh St. between Avenue B and Avenue C, where the two lived in a third-floor apartment in the early 1950s.
According to NYU's Grey Art Gallery, "Ginsberg took some of his best-known photographs of the Beats in this apartment, on the building's roof, and on the fire escape."
Speakers included downtown poet Bob Holman, Ginsberg memoirist and playwright Bob Rosenthal, and filmmaker and culture critic Regina Weinreich.
And both writers who very likely would have rejected today's reliance and worship of tech, coupled with the worship of tech zillionaries and their monopolies who are doing nothing to help save democracy, preserve the resilience of community, or to increase the number of people who are good civic citizens. Or, idk, maybe Burroughs would have exploited tech while condemning it. That might have been fun to witness. Where are all the people who are ready to, say, shoot a bullet through an iPad for instance and call it art? It's well past time for such expressions.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame the HOWL FEST is no more. It's nice that the LUNGS Fest is alive and growing. Lovely to see puppetry in the 'hood.
My ole building♥️♥️♥️
ReplyDeleteSorry. I stand corrected.
ReplyDelete@11:43- I don't know about shooting a bullet thru an iPad but I do know Burroughs shot a bullet thru his wife's head in Mexico City in 1951. Also not sure what you mean by "today's worship of tech." Looks like you used a tech device to post your anti-tech comment.
ReplyDeleteThank you Village Preservation for another great project recording the history of the EV. Looking forward to seeing plaques on all the other residences of important downtown artists and personages including Quentin Crisp, Robert Frank, and so many more.
ReplyDeleteThis is great. I was familiar for several years of the photo of Jack Kerouac on the fire escape. Never could I have imagined as a young Beat fan that I would one day be able stand on my fire escape and be a few doors down from Ginsberg’s.
ReplyDeleteI'm literally the guy who showed Allen Ginsberg the Web for the first time, at the offices of Hotwired in December of 1996. He immediately understood that it could be used like an underground newspaper, for _samizdat_ purposes. But he also immediately grokked the ego temptations. When I plugged his name into a search engine and hundreds of links came up, he sighed, "Thank God I don't know how to work this." The interview we did that day is the final interview in his collected interviews, "Spontaneous Mind."
ReplyDeleteThanks for background info
DeleteWhile researching the property found this article, I'm a real estate agent and I'm selling the ground floor unit of this apartment.
ReplyDeleteCome get a piece of history, great investment for creatives!
https://www.hlres.com/listings/1720008/sale-east-village