A book of oral histories about the now-shuttered venue takes us through those who came before, made it big, and died too soon.
Arthur Nersesian
Arthur Nersesian was born and raised in NYC. He is the author of 14 novels, a book of plays, and runs an online writing workshop. His last novel, Shit Show, came out in October 2025 with Eponymous Books, and is currently working on a new book about the late East Village artist and performer, Baby Gregor.
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The Rise and Fall of the East Village Lenin Statue
When I first started hanging out in the East Village in the mid-1970s, it was loaded with unofficial monuments to an older Lower East Side: Boarded up Yiddish theaters and a largely unused bocce ball court on Houston Street were reminders of the days when an immigrant community flourished.
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Guerilla Sculpture Critiques Big-Budget Public Art Commission
An anonymous work of protest art appeared on Jackson Avenue in Long Island City on Wednesday morning, but unlike much of the protest art that has been seen on the streets of US cities lately, this one targeted a very local and specific issue: Another work of public art.
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Greer Lankton’s Dolls Don’t Play
I’ve never seen a spoiler alert for an art show, but I learned two unexpected facts as I perused the Greer Lankton exhibition at Participant Inc.
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Taxidermy Sculptors Strut Their Stuff
Robert Marbury’s Taxidermy Art could easily be divided into a couple of books, both larger than this volume. Integrated, as they are here, these subjects make for a disjointed but nevertheless visually and intellectually stimulating read.
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Spotting Style in a More Bike-Friendly New York
When I became a bike rider back in the late 1970s, the very notion of New York Bike Style — now the title of a book by Sam Polcer (Prestel, 2014) — seemed like a contradiction in terms.
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Out-Burroughing William S. Burroughs
About thirty years ago, I met William S. Burroughs and had him sign my hardcover copy of Naked Lunch, which I duly lost. By contrast, R. Luke Dubois met Burroughs and found a clever idea. He came up with a literary art exhibition that basically out-Burroughed Burroughs.
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Eviction, Group Marriage, and What I Did Last Sunday
Last Sunday afternoon, as baffled tourists watched, an old-fashioned “Happening” occurred under the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge.