'Use Your Voice'

 

In April 2019 ... Patti Smith and Stewart Copeland joined Choir! Choir! Choir! at the "Onassis Festival 2019: Democracy Is Coming" ... at the Public on Lafayette. 

The choir of 250-strong joined Smith for a version of her 1988 single "People Have The Power."

Week in Grieview

[Avenue A]

Stories posted on EVG this past week included...

After the last call: East Village photographer captures bars at dawn (Thursday)

Concern over potential air-rights transfer for new office building on St. Mark's Place and 3rd Avenue (Tuesday) ... The lobbyists behind the air-rights transfer and zoning variance for 3 St. Mark's Place (Wednesday)

Here's how to reserve free tickets for the Basquiat exhibit opening next month at the Brant Foundation on 6th Street (Monday)

Jerry's New York Central is closing on 4th Avenue (Monday)

Patti Smith, John Zorn and Jim Jarmusch headline tribute to Jonas Mekas at City Winery (Friday)

UCB East has closed; what's next for their space on Avenue A and 3rd Street? (Monday)

SMØR now serving Nordic fare on 12th Street (Friday)

Raising awareness of the vacant storefronts in the East Village (Tuesday)

Craft+Carry outpost slated for 116 St. Mark's Place (Monday)

Patisserie Florentine has closed on 10th Street (Thursday)

Explosion-site condoplex now in the pile-driving phase on 2nd Avenue (Monday)

Bookstore trends we like to see (Monday)

MTA releases more details on the new L-train rehab plan (Thursday)

Virginia's reopens after December fire next door (Monday)

Your 'Russian Doll' reader (Sunday)

Attention Kmart drinkers... (Tuesday)

No one seems to want to keep these historic Anglo-Italianate townhouses on 10th Street (Wednesday)

The write stuff? Short Stories debuts on the Bowery (Monday)

KC Gourmet Empanadas debuts on Avenue B (Friday)

Two new quick-service options for Houston and Allen: pizza and gyros (Thursday)

Melt Shop makes way back to 4th Avenue (Tuesday)

The Marshal serves notice at Tapanju Turntable on 4th and B (Tuesday)

Donosita on Avenue B is for lease (Wednesday)

...

The Patti Smith/Punk mural arrived last July on Second Street at First Avenue... it was tagged, and stayed that way for months...



... and it was cleaned off this past week...



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Happy Birthday Lenny Kaye

Lenny Kaye, the influential guitarist and composer perhaps best known for his work with Patti Smith, turned 70 today.

On this occasion, EVG reader Jennifer, who lives on 15th Street between Second Avenue and Third Avenue, hung a Happy Birthday Lenny Kaye banner from her terrace this morning. (Unfortunately, we didn't get a great shot of it. The winds this morning prevented the banner from staying up for too long.)

Anyway, per Jennifer: "We wanted to salute his many talents!"

There's a sold-out 70th birthday concert tonight at the Bowery Ballroom in his honor.

Patti Smith is headlining the East Village relief benefit Sunday at Theatre 80

Author Alan Kaufman, who's helping to organize the fundraiser at Theatre 80 Sunday evening for displaced East Village residents, confirmed to EVG contributor Stacie Joy this afternoon that Patti Smith is now headlining the event.

All the money collected will be donated to the Good Old Lower East Side (GOLES) to help those affected by the deadly gas explosion at 121 Second Ave. on March 26.

The benefit at Theatre 80, 80 St. Marks Place between First Avenue and Second Avenue, will feature “performers and celebrities from the world of music, literature and drama,”per the Facebook event page.

As previously noted, Sting and Trudie Styler donated a sum reported at $36,000 for the benefit.

There are a handful of tickets, ranging from $70 to $150, left. You may order them here.

We'll have more information about the event from Stacie tomorrow.

Image by smial via Wikipedia

In this 1979 interview, a 'misbehaving' Patti Smith loses her mind, plays the clarinet

Hello Germany! Here's a 1979 interview from Rockpalast, a music TV show in Germany, featuring Patti Smith.

YouTube describes it this way:

Hilarious. A misbehaving Patti Smith (and Richard Sohl) with a very serious host (Alan Bangs) who keeps asking the same question and translates everything she says. Lenny Kaye tries to answer the question in the end.

Pump up the volume

The Patti Smith Group with "Pumping (My Heart)" live in 1979...

All together now...

Patti Smith from 1988 with "People Have the Power."

[Updated] A call for Patti Smith to cancel her upcoming performance at the Hotel Chelsea

Patti Smith, of course, was one of the many famous residents at Stanley Bard's Hotel Chelsea through the years, living with Robert Mapplethorpe in the early 1970s, and returning later in the 1990s as well.

The Hotel Chelsea blog today posted — with "great sadness" — the above invitation ... Per the post:

Patti must not know that the person sponsoring her upcoming event, Joseph Chetrit, is the same developer who took Stanley Bard’s beloved Chelsea Hotel away from him and his family. And surely she is unaware that this is the same Joseph Chetrit whose demolition crews recently gutted over a hundred historic Chelsea Hotel rooms.

The blog notes that Chetrit is currently trying to evict some 30 Hotel residents.

The Hotel Chelsea Blog is calling on her to cancel the event.

Read the whole post here.

UPDATED:

So many developments on this. She did perform for the new developers taking over the Hotel on Wednesday night, but canceled the show for residents on Thursday night.

Read updates at:

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

Living With Legends

Gothamist

Per Gothamist:

Despite her insistence that she is not being remunerated for her involvement, we’re hard pressed to understand Smith’s motives. The resident we spoke to, who also happens to live on the same floor as Patti Smith’s old room (204, if you’re wondering), offered a theory: "Her room has remained completely intact, as a shrine to her career, while all the other rooms have been demolished."

To your Easter