(Roving correspondent/ photographer Kristen Tobiason revisits and documents the scenes of our youth. Today, Greenwich Village West learns Tagalog.)
Time has reduced my memory of the Greenwich Village basement to a hot cement pit: the flickering yellow light and a stairwell descending to a gully that had possibly the worst acoustics I’ve ever experienced!
I remember Morlocks guitarist Ted Friedman’s reverb hitting the wall — flat and nowhere to go, just like the smoke from our cigarettes. But we all had a good time. … Everybody who was anybody was there, right? (Maybe I’m harboring band-girlfriend resentment from schlepping equipment up and down those stairs.)
“The full name was ‘Greenwich Village West, a Community of Artists,’ ” recalls Rockin’ Dog Dave Ellison in an earlier thread. “I thought it was a little corny, myself … but they really were trying to make it a hip place. Other similar places downtown were filled with junkies and losers of all sorts … and it looked like they made a pretty good effort to keep that element out of Greenwich Village West.”
On my recent visit to 536 Fifth Avenue, I was pleased to note that (unlike many early punk hot spots) the structure was still intact, and the exterior is virtually unchanged. After reclaiming its original name in 1996, The Lincoln Hotel comprises 41 low-income single-room apartments.
Meanwhile, that legendary basement is now the San Diego Filipino-American Humanitarian Society Museum — not what I expected! Hotel resident Zak was kind enough to give me a tour through the lower labyrinth of pipes, new walls and historical busts behind Plexiglass. Zak was very impressed when I told him that this was actually a punk-rock Filipino Museum!
— Kristen Tobiason
More views of San Diego then and now:
- Then and Now: Funland
- Then and Now: Studio 517
- Then and Now: La Posta
- Then and Now: Presidio Park
- Then and Now: El Cajon Blvd. Denny’s
Here’s a Google Maps walkaround of the Lincoln Hotel and its neighbors today:
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Matt, most of those photos you have of us were taken in our studio in the basement at GVW.
Is The Wallflowers name still spraypainted on the wall in the basement? It was waaaay tough to explain to the management how that got there, but yet it somehow wasn’t our fault.
Great photos. Amazing that we haven’t all died of black lung with all of the yeck we inhaled here.
I had a lot of fun hanging out in the rooms with people who lived there, like Doug Rudolf and John Marshall…and going to shows and hanging out in the basement. The Rockin’ Dogs only played there once though. Does anyone remember a guy named Emerson who lived at GVW? …he was a young asian kid who used to hang out a lot.
The red building next door was also an SRO upstairs with a really bad element living there.
One of those busts in the Plexiglass boxes? Steve Garris!
Dave Ellison: The Emerson name is familiar … He was maybe three years younger than us, am I right?
Mattew, yeah he was younger than us. He wanted to learn to play jazz guitar, so he had a book on the subject and a cheap flattop acoustic with action that was about an inch high… so I dont know how far he got with that. I hung out with him a little bit when I was working downtown back then.
I also remember one guy who lived there that I used to see walking around on the streets all the time when I worked down there…my girlfriend from back then nicknamed him Epstein, after the guy in Welcome Back Kotter.
He had big bushy hair…i forgot that part.
I could write a book on this place but I’ll spare you. There was the ABC bar right next door. Which had lots of “action” and not in a good way either. A couple of shoot outs when I lived there. Once when I was on the pay phone on the first landing which was probably 10 feet away from the entrance of the ABC. I’ve mentioned before that the basement always gave me the jeebies and yeah I agree with Matt, the sound down there was like playing in a bottomless well. many stories about this place I just need to think about a while.
>>I agree with Matt, the sound down there was like playing in a bottomless well
Todd: While I share the sentiment, this piece was actually written by Kristen Tobiason. (I don’t harbor any “band-girlfriend resentment”!) 🙂
not even a little ? what a sport ! i loved gvw ! bad sound fun shows.
Todd…If you have a book’s worth of stuff to say about this place, we want to hear all of it!
The TTHs played there a half dozen times, but I don’t remember anything about the sound in there. What I do remember is a low ceiling and the walls dripping with sweat. I also remember being puzzled by all of that black stuff everywhere. I’m sure that at the time I imagined this was what the Cavern Club was like.
Very sorry about the oversight Kristen. I guess that’ll teach me not to drink more than one Manhattan before writing something. Okay maybe a book’s worth is a slight exaggeration but once again blame it on the Manhattan. The place was run by Dan and Ken. Ken lived out of his jujitsu studio next door which he taught classes in when he wasn’t collecting rent at Greenwich. Dan wore renaissance garb and milled around Greenwich doing what I don’t know.I guess the idea was to make Greenwich some “artist utopia” which was a lot of bull as there were probably more regular folks than actual artists living there. That Epstein guy Dave mentions was from Philly. He came out to San Diego to break in to the stand-up comedy scene. Emerson was more of an art-rock guy. More like Japan and Eno. I know I mentioned before about that incredible mural covered by a dropped ceiling in the lobby and the little room in the basement covered in old 30’s and 40’s newspaper clippings of boxers.The story I heard was that the Lincoln Hotel boasted of having the longest bar in San Diego and was a favorite spot for all the sailors(which would explain the Popeye mural). I was told that it went from the front of the hotel(the lobby) to the very back.
I really believe this place was/is haunted. I know I sound like a nut, but I don’t care. I had some things happen in my room that scared the shit out of me. Like one night being awoken by shrill voices, opening my eyes and seeing shadows swirling around my room. Like a portal to hell had been opened for me.The tempature dropped where I was actually shivering. I closed my eyes and prayed for it all to end and it finally did. One time Jerry C. and Jack got chased through the building by police. Running through the halls, up stairs, and fire escapes. I think it turned out to be mistaken idenities. although I can’t imagine another person looking like Jerry or Jack for that matter.
Did anyone here ever go to the Chop Suey across the street at Island and 5th? You can see the old sign is still up on the Google Maps walk around. I loved that place and would go there when I felt like treating myself to some $5.00 Peking Duck.
is nothing todd. love your story. “wild in the streets…running running…”
>>Did anyone here ever go to the Chop Suey across the street at Island and 5th?
Todd: I loved that place, which I believe was slathered inside with a thick coat of light green enamel paint. It was like a 1930s time warp — completely unreconstructed Old San Diego.
Yes that old shade of green and those old private booths with the curtains on them. When you left to pay there was elderly Chinese man waiting behind the brass cash register. He could very well have been wearing one of those Chinese pig tails for all I know. The only thing that maybe broke the continuity of it being 1930’s was Marvin Gaye being played from the jukebox.
Was it the Sun Cafe, pictured in photos by Harold Gee? (I remember the interior better than the front.)
Headed to the bathrooms, I half-expected to stumble upon stacked bunks of nodding opium smokers hidden in the back of that restaurant.
That totally sums up the feel of that place. Straight out of the movie, ‘The Shanghai Gesture’. Looking at Harold’s photo it definitely was not the Sun Cafe. There wasn’t the counter in the Chop Suey like you can see in that picture. I distinctly remember a grand old sign reading CHOP SUEY in red neon.
Using the Google Maps walkaround at the top of this thread, I’m remembering that the Chinese joint Todd’s talking about was across the street from and south of GVW on Fifth Ave. — near the southeast corner of Fifth and Island. (Of course, I’m the guy who mistakenly insisted Sheldon’s and the Headquarters were next door to each other in PB, so don’t take my word as bond.)
There was the neon sign that advertised “chop suey”, but that wasnt the name of the restaurant. I cant remember the name of it, but it was the oldest Chinese restaurant in San Diego. There was still a restaurant there the last time I went past. It was right on the corner… 5th and ??
>>It was right on the corner… 5th and ??
… Island?
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Yup, that’s it. That’s the chop suey sign attached to the front, facing traffic on fifth…but now it reads something else.
I just got down into the Filipino museum in the basement … Those busts are every bit as freaky-looking in 3D as they are in Kristen’s photos!
Did my very first show at Greenwich Village West on 12/01/84 with Diatribe and Eleven Sons. Bart Cheever (KCR, Bart Blackstone) DJ’d.
Well this is Danny. The originator/owner & founder of greenwich Village West. So incredible to see this article about GVW nearly 40 years ago. As someone said in the comments; one could write a book about the amazing creative events with countless human interactions that occurred in around this unique Facility:
It certainly wasn’t experiment run on a shoestring. Live in/art spaces ran for $50 a week.
Not only were music events run down in the basement pit; but they were movies on the rooftop; gallery events in the lobby; a makeshift coffee shop; community kitchen; street events; an unsupported/Word of mouth work support system & essentially a safe harbor for artists and their friends.
Efforts were made to promote and support artist despite some of the shallow criticisms a previous comments above.
But much appreciated.
Be well wherever you are and stay safe. Daddy Daniel/ Artist; registered nurse & Poet
Danny,
Thanks for this! It’s an amazing addition to the recollections on this page -- some of which are already many years old, themselves.
Thanks for GVW, too. Living there saved my life, through 1984 into 1985. I’d say there are at least a half-dozen of us that I could name from those days, who would say the same.
It was also a great place to play.
Here’s a flyer that I did lettering on, for the Halloween ’84 show in the GVW basement, and me in the same basement, earlier that year -- pretending to set up lights!