Friday, June 21, 2024

Rocks off: The Fillmore East memorial plaque is MIA on 2nd Avenue

Photos by Steven 

The plaque commemorating the Fillmore East at 105 Second Ave. near Sixth Street is MIA. 

It looks to have been ripped from the storefront here at the former Apple Bank, which closed and merged with the outpost on Fourth Avenue in March.
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation (now Village Preservation) and Two Boots placed the memorial here in the fall of 2014 to honor the venue that helped launch some of the biggest names in music from 1968 to 1971.
Andrew Berman, executive director of Village Preservation, said they were aware of the missing plaque and were looking into it. 

The sibling to Bill Graham's Fillmore in San Francisco brought performers such as Led Zeppelin, the Doors, B.B. King, Roberta Flack, the Byrds, the Grateful Dead, Taj Mahal, Jefferson Airplane, Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix, Joan Baez and the Who to the East Village starting in March 1968. 

For the last show (an invitation-only performance) on June 27, 1971, there were reportedly three billed acts — headliners The Allman Brothers Band plus The J. Geils Band and Albert King ... and special surprise guests Edgar Winter's White Trash, Mountain, The Beach Boys and Country Joe McDonald.
Archival photo courtesy of Amalie R. Rothschild

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Plaques have also been stolen from Tompkins Square Park. People are taking them for the metal.

Grieve said...

Working on a post about the missing TSP plaques...

Anonymous said...

Hopefully they were just going to add The Allman Brothers Band to the plaque but I doubt it.

derek berg said...

My favorite Tompkins Sq Park bench plaque "You are responsible for your own orgasm" was stolen a couple of months ago. I was always amazed that people sitting on that bench were not aware of the it.

Anonymous said...

If you were lucky enough to experience the Filmore , you would understand the importance of this legendary place. I still have my stubs from the many shows there. I miss everything about that time.

Anonymous said...

For a full list of all the amazing bands that played the Fillmore East. Legends before they became legends

http://www.fillmore-east.com/showlist.html

Carol from East 5th Street said...

A sacrilege! Are there no surveillance cameras?

Anonymous said...

Hoping for that, too!

Felton Davis said...

Patty Boyd turned 80 on March 17th. What happened to Prudence, the girl next to Patty on the train, just as cute? Eva Marie Saint from On the Waterfront, Exodus and The Russians are Coming, will be 100 years old on the 4th of July.

Anonymous said...

What a lot of people don't realize is this was the entrance to the theater (on 2nd) - the actual space was on 6th Street, now an apartment building. That building today has a plaque that commemorates not only the Fillmore, but also other occupants of the hall:

https://www.hmdb.org/Photos4/449/Photo449122o.jpg?10112018122900PM

Anonymous said...

Watch rock? What a scummy impersonal 2024 thing to say about the FIllmore.

GBelle said...

It was also the site of 'The Saint' nightclub! One of the most important gay clubs in the 80's. Fun fact: my Dad was related to the lover of the owner Bruce Mailman, so he took my mom to the club on their honeymoon and she was one of only a handful of women that was allowed in! She did quaaludes and had the best night of her life! The club had a planetarium galaxy projector, which was supposed to be spectacular!