Let's stroll through Tompkins Square Park on this June 1, 1967

Fans of the Grateful Dead likely know that the band's first East Coast outdoor show took place on June 1, 1967 — right here in Tompkins Square Park during the Summer of Love. (We wrote about it here.)

A recent article about the gig on NYSMusic.com provides more details on how the show transpired and why the NYPD asked the Dead to play in Tompkins Square Park ...

[The hippies] that had descended upon Manhattan’s Lower East Side grew fond of playing their congas and bongos at the park. Puerto Ricans, the neighborhood majority, wanted their music to be prevalent and the Black community also fought for control of the musical output. Over the last few weekends, fighting at the park had become rampant.

Most recently, 38 people were arrested at Tompkins Square Park on Memorial Day after being confronted by police for sitting on the grass where they were playing music, both park violations. Per a Village Voice article from June 8, 1967, "A couple of cops went over to the park and told the hippies to shut up and get off the grass. The kids laughed, and kept singing. The cops ordered them to leave. 'They laughed at us,' patrolman John Rodd explained. 'That's when the trouble began.'" 

Throw in all the other issues that the summer of 1967 undoubtedly brought and it becomes clear that local police were in danger of losing their city, as far as popular opinion went, and needed to rethink their tactics. 

Part of the NYPD's plan: a free show by the Grateful Dead.

After some initial reluctance, they were nudged to accept after lead guitarist Jerry Garcia spoke up, seeing it as a chance for outsiders like them to bring another community together via music.

The NYSMusic.com post includes a 5-minute video clip that was new to me via the Associated Press that shows scenes from the Park on this June 1, 1967... and in some places (RIP the bandshell!), the Park doesn't look all that different 53 years later...







As the details on the video note: "Some 3,000 'hippies' found a place for themselves in the sun of tompkins square park to show police that they cannot be intimidated" ... please note that the first two minutes of this clip does not have any audio...

Special news report from 1967: 'Hippies change scene in East Village'

Updated 2/28: I didn't realize that my blogging friend Alex at the always-excellent Flaming Pablum posted this back in 2018.

In case you haven't seen this (the clip was new to me — thanks Winn!) ... here's 8 minutes of footage from the Associated Press dated Oct. 13, 1967, and titled "Hippies change scene in East Village." (The AP uploaded the clip to YouTube in August 2018.)

It was apparently part of a report (b-roll?) on the scene here — after the Summer of Love caught the attention of the mainstream media.

Unfortunately, there isn't any sound to the clip. At times, you get the idea that some editor told a crew to "drive around the neighborhood and film some hippies!"

You'll recognize several locations, like a glimpse of the Christodora House on Avenue B and some familiar places inside Tompkins Square Park (Temperance Fountain!). There are other shots of storefronts and businesses of local historical significance, such as the East Village Other office when it was still at 147 Avenue A, and the Diggers' Free Store at 264 E. 10th St.

Also, notice how few storefront vacancies there appear to be.

Anyway, enjoy ... watch it with your choice of music as a backdrop...

Special feature: The East Village in 1967, 'walk into a sex, marijuana and LSD orgy'

Longtime East Village resident Anton van Dalen shared this clipping with us from the Daily News dated Feb. 8, 1967.

Titled "East Village Theme Is Now Love and Let Love," the piece begins with a bang, so to speak:

There was a time when you could knock on any of a dozen doors in the East Village and walk into a sex, marijuana and LSD orgy.

This "Special Feature" provides a snapshot of the area... from drug use to dating. You can click on the images for a better read of the article. It is well worth your time to do so.

A few excerpts by subject.

Dating:

Many of the relationships are interracial, with the usual coupling being a white girl and Negro man. At places such as The Dom, the Annex, the Old Reliable and PeeWee's Other Side interracial pickups and dating don't even raise an eyebrow.

A Negro writer who lives in the area described one East Village saloon as the "meat market" because because so many chicks from outside the area flock to it, as he said, "to prove how unprejudiced they are."

Drugs:

The artists, writers and hangers-on who take drugs lean toward marijuana and LSD. The slum-dwellers — those who live in the East Village because they have no choice — take heroin or cocaine if they take anything at all.

The "heavy" drugs bring the usual problems of muggings and burglaries, committed by addicts with expensive habits to feed.

Residents:

Strangely, the great majority of East Villagers are not from the underprivileged classes, trying to fight their ways to the top. Most of them come from middle class families or higher.

A local bank manager told Father Allen [of St. Mark's Church-in-the-Bowery] that many of the beatnik types are supported by their parents, drawing weekly allowances of up to $100.

Weekend tourists:

Most of these are not artists or writers. Ishmael Reed, whose novel 'The Freelance Pallbearers' is scheduled to be published by Doubleday in the fall, calls them 'A-trainers,' those who ride the subway downtown "to take their lessons in hip," then go back to where they came from.

Not everyone is scornful of the newcomers. Father Allen feels that "terrible tensions are being built up in the community."

He sees a "tendency to develop a 'we-they' attitude — 'we' when we think of ourselves, 'they' when we think of others."

We asked Anton, who moved to the East Village in 1967, for his thoughts on the article.

It's a fascinating read, this 1967 Daily News "special feature" story about our neighborhood. Beyond the shrill headline "Love and Let Love" is a good snapshot of the social revolution that took place here.

The last paragraph with naming this new culture "a kind of accidental laboratory" does call it right.

The East Village/Lower East Side by the early 60s was a largely poor and forgotten Eastern European neighborhood. But then because of its cheap rents and old-world immigrant charm came to be an attraction for counter-culture young. Mostly for young white people that sought to counter mainstream America which they felt disenfranchised by.

Out of that intermingling of old and new world cultures an unifying vision sprung of transcending cultural differences. Many, like me, came here because of wanting to be in the front row and watch up close this love revolution unfold a new way of life.

But then soon this spectacle of life drew many of us in to participate in this "accidental laboratory." In time I learned that our neighborhood had already for two centuries been a spawning ground for human social and political progress.

Last line says it well and still good today: "If we can work out our differences here, maybe there's a chance someplace else."

Avenue A and Tompkins Square Park in the rain — circa 1967

A reader passed along a link to these James Jower photos from the George Eastman House Collection on Flickr... rain photos circa 1967 in Tompkins Square Park...

...and Seventh Street and Avenue A...

Spend the rest of this rainy day looking at the 1,000-plus set of photos here.

Tompkins Square Park, June 1, 1967 — 'Hippie Heaven'

Original caption: "Hippie Heaven. New York: Hippie heaven is in Tompkins Square Park June 1 where a couple of the clan dance and play music in the sunshine, The park, which was the scene of a bloody melee late May 30 when 200 hippies refused police orders to stay away from the park's grassy sections, played host to the hippie's once again as the biggest outpouring of New York's dropout generation converged here to show police they cannot be intimidated."

IMAGE:
© Bettmann/CORBIS
DATE PHOTOGRAPHED
June 01, 1967

If the Electric Circus were to open today

At first, this was meant as nothing more than an appreciation of some photos (via Getty Images) of the Electric Circus from 1968 ... with the original photo captions on the first three...

"Patrons at Electric Circus, 23 St. Marks Place, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, New York City. stops for check. Girls not wearing bras are admitted free on Sundays."

"UNITED STATES - JUNE 27: Transparent plastic bra strap, virtually invisible around back, gives a topless look to formal mini at the Electric Circus at 23 St. Marks Place, New York City. (Photo by William Quinn/NY Daily News Archive via Getty Images)"

"Fashionable crowd mill about outside the Electric Circus 23 St. Marks Place, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, New York City."

Then I started thinking about the reaction if this very same venue would open here today... A hot club promoter (in this case, Jerry Brandt) ... celebrities... crowds from everywhere showing up on St. Mark's Place... how would the community respond? No bra night?! Sounds like some stunt Superdive would have pulled. And look at that mob on the sidewalk! Call 311! (And what would those local bloggers write!) Has the influx of bars and jackasses and woo-wooing in recent years made us intolerant of any nightlife? Or maybe just some nightlife? Or a certain type of nightlife? (I can keep going with the vague rhetorical questions!) Regardless, I would have liked to seen this concept go before today's CB3/SLA committee...

Anyway, here are several more photos from the Getty archives... the Electric Circus closed in 1971... the address now houses a Supercuts and Chipotle ... as well as $17,000 apartments...

By the way, this wasn't meant as a history of the space... plenty has been written about it, including, but not limited to:

Jack Newfield Catches the Electric Circus Opening on St. Marks (The Village Voice)

FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER: The Electric Circus (The Bowery Boys)

Streetscapes / 19-25 St. Marks Place; The Eclectic Life of a Row of East Village Houses (The Times)

Live on St. Mark's Place for only $17,000 per month! (EV Grieve)