Some details via Village Preservation:
Led Zeppelin immortalized the twin tenements at 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place between First Avenue and Avenue A on the Physical Graffiti album cover. The award-winning design featured the two buildings (with the fourth floors removed to make them fit the square shape of the album cover) with the windows cut out to reveal the letters of the album title printed on the inner sleeve, or, if the sleeve was reversed, a series of images of different characters seeming to occupy the building, including lead-singer Robert Plant in drag.
The building's rock history also includes the stoop at No. 96 ... where Mick Jagger and Keith Richards met up at the start of the 1981 video by the Rolling Stones for "Waiting on a Friend."
The building is also home to the basement tea shop Physical GraffiTea ... owner Ilana Malka previously ran the vintage clothing boutique Physical Graffiti here until January 2011.
Talk in song from tongues of lilting grace
ReplyDeleteSounds caress my ears
DeleteSuch a great Led Zeppelin album cover! I have always loved the Stones song Waiting on a Friend. I remember when the mural of the Glimmer Twins was still in the back of the bar. Thanks EV for posting the video!
ReplyDeleteThey chopped the fifth floor...
ReplyDeleteNot that it really matters, but if you look at the stone coloration it looks like they chopped the 4th and dropped the 5th. The 4th has large dark stones over the windows, which aren't on the cover.
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