213 Park Avenue South used to be Max’s Kansas City, a popular nightclub and venue where Andy Warhol liked to hang out with his entourage, which included The Velvet Underground, David Bowie, Patti Smith, the New York Dolls, and many more. It is now a deli. #nyc #music (at W New York – Union Square)
Though the area has changed in the past 10 years, the intersection of Maspeth Ave and Conselyea St. in Williamsburg (off the Graham L stop) is the location of the Holdy Steady’s ‘Separation Sunday’ album cover. This is the best angle I could get without getting hit by a car. If you’re a Hold Steady fan (and why wouldn’t you be?) it’s fun to point out that there’s a Catholic church within the frame. Maybe that’s where Holly was born again?
#music #theholdsteady #williamsburg #nyc (at Bushwick/Williamsburg)
Jones St in Greenwich Village – the street where in February 1963 Bob Dylan walked in the freezing cold with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo for a photo shoot that would produce the ‘The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan’ album cover. I couldn’t get the exact angle for the sake of not getting run over by a car, but the street looks very close to what it would have looked like 50+ years ago. #nyc #bobdylan (at Jones St, New York)
For all you Simon & Garfunkel fans, the album cover for their underrated debut album ‘Wednesday Morning, 3 A.M.’ is on the E line platform of the 5th Ave 53rd St metro stop. #nyc (at Fifth Avenue and 53rd Street, NYC)
The corner of W. 3rd St and Sullivan St might not seem like much, but this actually where Neil Young was photographed for his famous album cover ‘After The Gold Rush’. #nyc #neilyoung (at Washington Square)
In the Vampire Weekend song “Finger Back”, Ezra Koenig sings of an Orthodox Jewish girl who falls in love with an Arab boy who works at a falafel shop. This is that falafel shop called Jerusalem (“you know – the one at 103rd and Broadway”) and you can see the laminated poster of the Dome of the Rock. In the song, “Jerusalem” is actually a play on words; it’s the name of a falael shop but it’s also a part of the Passover Seder Prayer (“Sing next year in Jerusalem”). When you look at the rest of the lyrics, this song can be interpreted as a meditation on how tradition and history are a part of our everyday lives and yet sometimes we forgo the past in the name of love; even when the world seems to be going up in flames (“The city’s getting hotter like a country in decline”) we still somehow find time to fall in love. This deep religious context in a pop song is incredible, and it’s another reason why ‘Modern Vampires of the City’ is one of the best pop albums of this decade. #nyc (at Jerusalem Restaurant)
Strawberry Fields #nyc (at Strawberry Fields)