When Punk Went Viral By Erin Dyer

The magnitude of CBGB's legacy parallels that of Mecca—a place of reverence and sacred fulfillment generations over have endured great pilgrimage to visit, if at least once, and quench souls' ethereal thirst. For ardent punk rock devotees, CBGB was music's Mecca. Hilly Kristal birthed it. The Bowery housed it. And underground punk revolutionized it. Even six years past its closing, no other club in rock history has nurtured the genre-distinct milieu as Kristal's establishment. But after 33 years of radiance in 2006, this Mecca's light was snuffed and the Bowery's DNA eclipsed.

At the time months of tug-of-war disputes over rent ensued while loyalists rallied in protest. To no avail, CBGB struck a deal with the Bowery Residents' Committee. These not-for-profit homeless-helpers and leaseholders on the property permitted Kristal's occupancy of 313 and 315 Bowery until October 31, 2006. Rumors flared about the venue relocating to Lower Manhattan, even Las Vegas, and potentially sacrificing the 313 Gallery to keep the original club open. But Kristal couldn't stomach canceling emerging artists' opportunities—as equally important as its 315 big brother's noise-making acts—so the founder and club owner declined operating one venue without the other.

As it turns out, the greatest gesture of CBGB's reputable outcome was a cause célébre subculture, a society of like-minded path carvers that rallied around a new music, a unity that required a place to grow. The club, therefore, became a community center of sound for rock fans and wayward enthusiasts. Simultaneously it anchored a very dicey and repellent neighborhood to the map. For 33 years CB's was a New York City-Bowery destination, a venerated escape fixed among industrial shells and flophouse derelicts, street folk who made club attendees appear normal. "The Bowery was—to repeat—a drab, ugly, and unsavory place," Kristal romanticized in his 1998 unedited history of the club. "But it was good enough for rock and rollers. The people who frequented CBGB didn't seem to mind staggering drunks and stepping over a few bodies." Hell, all other similar venues in 1974 were either closing, collapsing (literally), or in limbo while changing ownership. The country bluegrass blues music that Kristal intended—thus its acronymed name—wasn't what earned the joint its fame. Rather the granddaddy of hardcore unknowingly transcended time when Television and the Ramones first hit its stage, forever setting a raucous tone for a new New York, and a subsequent rock scene that grew to dominate America's stage and pioneer a lifestyle. Premiere strictly original, uniquely talented, artistic perspectives that would set future standards—was CBGB's rule. It was the only rule that integrated this cultural mentality inspired by freedom yet characterized by anti-establishment views. But because it was firmly established and Kristal never wavered, even despite some Uptown creep into the Lower East Side, it was punk supported and respected for life. As if presenting a unanimous front, American punk and new wave unapologetically procured a united mission alongside this hole in the wall club and the Bowery, with a vengeance.

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Further honoring forms of visual expression, Kristal added fever pitch to the ever growing stoke by opening CB's 313 neighbor as a concurrent art gallery in 1987. Insufficient funds first failed to cover basic operating costs, lacking a liquor license and requiring patrons to risk life and limbs navigating through the wasteland of burnt out crack shacks. But adversity prevailed over said minor threats. When an unknown West Coast band in town on a whim pleaded permission to play a gallery acoustic set because they couldn't be fit into the club's schedule last minute, Kristal graciously agreed. A full-to-capacity turnout surprised everyone—and that Guns 'N Roses show launched the idea of hosting nightly bands within the gallery as well. A legend in the making, CB's reputation continued to precede this diamond in the Bowery rough. And the call for artists echoed even louder.

Art-cum-music naturalized as gallery life transformed from art space by day into full-bore music lounge come nightfall, shifting the spotlight from the walls to featured musicians and nestling patrons into the contours where art and culture officially converge. Talent the likes of Ron English, Liz McGrath, Imitation of Christ, Coop, Shepard Fairey, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Dee Dee Ramone were a few of many artists that shown there, while J Mascis, Patti Smith, Violent Femmes, C Gibbs, Steve Turner, Voltaire, David Byrne, and scores of others filled the gallery with their sounds.

The high-end John Varvatos boutique occupying 315 Bowery today is a manicured three-sixty from the fraggle rock its forefather attracted. But preservation of a punkhouse gone and a contemporary neighborhood in flux rejuvenated this summer through the CBGB Festival. Organizers, gracefully, upheld the brand's mission and spirit by not trying to recreate the venue, or the past in present time (for that matter). They didn't even appear to skimp momentum off the top for the movie. They asked emerging artists to rock deserved stages in Manhattan and Brooklyn, while an understanding of the biz could be learned through music business conferences, classic and unseen rock films were screened, industry panel discussions informed, and a whiskey festival kept the people watching evermore interesting.

When a special talent dies young, it is poeticized that their light burned too brightly, it was only meant to touch us briefly. And so is true for punk's birthplace. Yet CBGB's well of integrity continues to run deep throughout the Bowery and beyond. If you were fortunate enough to have seen a show or viewed art at rock's ultimate club, consider yourself blessed to have drunk from punk's Mecca oasis of artistic brilliance.

Erin Dyer is Associate Editor of Thrasher Magazine at High Speed Productions. She has written extensively for Juxtapoz, Thrasher and other publications. She currently lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

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The Land of Threeasfour

I'm nervous, lost. Standing on a corner in somewhere Chinatown I look all around me at the small vivid shops crammed with merchandise of every description, feathered ducks, jewels; silk, trinkets.-I squint up and around me at the pale sky and golden leaves trembling on the trees in the park on the other side of the street. No sign in sight. I pace back and forth asking any number of Chinese, some of whom speak English much better than others if they know how I can get to Forsyth Street. They don't. Finally one is kind enough to explain I've already arrived. My destination, a narrow Lower East Side walk-up --is two steps away.

Four steeply tilted flights later Gabi opens the door to the Threeasfour studio, loft. It's all silver. It reflects. The silver walls are hung with simple mirrors like pools of light. The ceilings are silver with mirrored globes suspended on silver chains. Glass flowers mass at the top of a column-in an unexpected spray of translucent pallor and a cut glass and silver table holds an arrangement of violins and florescent light bulbs. In one corner, crop circle patterns form an intricate, snowflake like globe hanging next to a story board –inspiring prints. Crystals dangle in and outside the long windows to one side of the loft. The sides of the fire escape are a weave of silk blossoms. There is a small splash of silver paint that looks like a deep sea animal on one side of a rail. Gabi invites me to sit in a silver chair. Through the window in front of me the yellow leaves tremble.

Gabi himself-while not precisely silver is dressed in flowing grey with strong arms exposed. His hair is black and white. So is his beard. He has large dark expressive eyes and an aquiline nose. His partner Adi has red hair pulled off her face. It's streaked with gold. One of her eye brows is red- the other blond. She is wearing mirrored silver sandals and her necklaces are strung with crystals and small shells. Her nail polish is three different shades of dusky -blue. There is something Shakespearian about them. He might be Prospero, she one of Queen Tatiana's throng. I feel I've crossed a foreign place into a magic space- a mirror world; a moon perhaps.

Adi, Gabi and their third partner Ange have chosen to make their home Chinatown because to Chinatown's inhabitants every foreigner is the same. They are invisible in this place. Their appearance, their way of being is never judged. Here on the outer reaches of Manhattan, the last 'authentic' neighborhood blocks linger unchanged: a barrier of safety against the conformity of luxury boutique chains and yuppie "lofts".

And this is where they show their clothes because "here is where rebellious energy lives. It is our personality. We feel at home. For us the feeling wins."

They define the Threeasfour designs as expressions from the inside to the surface and from the surface into space. The color and motion of the clothes are inspired by the human body- related not just to the wearer's emotions but to their skin and flesh. Colors reflect the wearer's aura, the light in the air, their energy and the energy outside. Colors are also the colors of the season. There are shades of purple, the color of the second highest chakra: the travelling to the light. For this season-they chose the colors of the crepuscule: that time of day when the shifting light transforms and deepens everything we see. "We wanted to create the sensation of wearing clothes that are alive. "

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Movement is integral to design. If what you wear doesn't move with you- you 'feel trapped'. All three partners cut. As Gabi describes it-the three have "the same mind. We understand the geometry of the body which is the anatomy of the body. It's related to the anatomy outside of it: trees, plants, clouds, water and fire. And all of these elements are forms of geometry, which is nature, the clothes are more than a link, they create an awareness of energy, an energy flow in your body. They're glamorous. They can live anywhere.

"Last summer's collection was inspired by geographic forms and symbols for the Arab and Jewish worlds that are so beautiful in both cultures –combined" the show was at a museum in Tel Aviv. It was performance art. There were contributing artists from the Arab and Israeli worlds; invited artists from America. The models played Shesh Besh, a game that's very popular in the Middle East.

As a result Threeasfour has been invited to create a show for The Jewish Museum in New York. They are toying with the idea of making a Metatron cube-the Jewish star in three dimensions…a model of sacred geometry the spectators can interact with. Still, they aren't yet sure.

Says Gabi-"We take the clothes to the places they can go- into films, stage costumes, art. We made widely grandiose costumes for puppeteers at BAM. We let what we make be. We follow the designs "

He looks at me with his magician's eyes: "Don't ignore your dreams. The time you dream is half the time you live." Gabi tells me. I wasn't planning to.

This profile is based on a conversation between Addi, Gabi Jacqueline Miro and Michèle Gerber Klein

Author's note: Adi Gil Angela Danhauser and Gabiel Asfour-who are Threeasfour- won the Ecco Domani Fashion Grant in 2001. Their work has been acquired by numerous prominent museums throughout the world: The Victoria and Albert Museum for the exhibit "New York Fashion Now" and in 2008, Metropolitan Museum of Art for "Superheroes: Fashion and Body. The work has also been shown at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum, New York, and Musee de la Mode et du Costume Galliera in Paris Threeasfour were finalists in the Council of Fashion Designers of America and Vogue Magazine fashion fund award that is given to next generation of American fashion designers. They have worked with Yoko Ono. Alternative rock star Björk claims to be their number one fan.

To acces threeASFOUR webstore, please visit: http://www.planetofstyle.com/welcome.php

Michèle Gerber-Klein
Born in Santa Fé, New Mexico Michèle Gerber Klein lives and was raised in New York. Michèle has written about art, fashion and arts de vivre for a wide variety of publications, including BOMB magazine. She sits on the boards of the New Museum of Contemporary Art, The Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian National Design Museum, The Museum at FIT, Chairs the Whitney Museums Library Fellows, and serves on the Photography Acquisition Committees for the Whitney Museum of American Art and theMuseum of Modern Art in Manhattan as well as MoMAs Architecture and Design Committee

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Is Traffic in the Bowery Like the Weather or Like Polio?

The Impact of Congestion on the Bowery and the rest of New York City

In recent months – years, really – traffic-related accidents in the Bowery have received attention. Prompted in 2009 by a high incidence of bicycle accidents at the intersection of Bowery and East Houston Street, the New York City Department of Transportation conducted a study that identified, and proposed ways to reduce the risk of, dangerous crossings in the Bowery and other surrounding neighborhoods.

In addition to bike accidents, the study looked at intersections that posed challenges for pedestrians. For instance, the stoplight at the intersection at East 4th and Bowery only provided approximately seven seconds for pedestrians to traverse Bowery before the lights for cross bound traffic turned green. While the crossing times at that intersection have since been increased to 20 seconds, the anecdote illustrates the tension that exists between allowing people enough time to cross an intersection safely and having the stoplights change with enough frequency to flush through backed-up vehicles.

Other congested intersections where cars and pedestrians compete for primacy include where Bleeker Street terminates at Bowery and where Broadway meets Houston. Cars trying to access the Bowery neighborhood at these and other intersections get backed up waiting for pedestrians to make their way through the crosswalks.

What all of these situations have in common is competition for street space among bicyclists, pedestrians and drivers. The danger, of course, is that where you have traffic congestion, you have frustrated and impatient drivers. And where you have frustrated and impatient drivers you have impulsive, angry behavior and therefore increased risk of accidents involving pedestrians and cyclists.

In addition to the risks of injury or death from such accidents, vehicular traffic on our city streets also leads to increased particulate pollution and thus asthma rates, especially among children – though it is important to note that heightened emissions standards over several decades have led to a dramatic improvement in overall air quality.

It's no secret that traffic also results in enormous delays for automobile and truck drivers and taxi riders leading to a significant loss in productivity for the New York City metro area. A study conducted in 2006 by the Partnership for New York City put region-wide losses for businesses and consumers due to traffic congestion at more than $13 billion per year. And this year, New York City is projected to bump Los Angeles from atop the list of the most congested U.S. cities in the country.

Despite the deleterious impact traffic has on New York's quality of life, most New Yorkers long ago resigned themselves to the notion that traffic is like the weather – there's nothing you can do about it; it's just an indelible part of living and working in the New York metro area. In truth, traffic is not a fact of life; it is more like polio – a long-standing problem with a cure.

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Such a cure must be premised on the idea that traffic has a cost and that cost is born by everyone, including drivers. If you price the cost of driving a little closer to the actual cost a given driver imposes on everyone else – in the form of time delays, lost productivity, health problems caused by air pollution, traffic accidents, etc. – voila, you'll have less people driving and more people taking mass transit, riding their bikes or walking. And if you also price driving according to how much traffic there is and how much each driver is therefore contributing to overall traffic – i.e., higher tolls where there's a lot of traffic and lower tolls where there's less – you'll create a system that not only reduces traffic but is fairer because one pays according to how much traffic one creates or contributes to.

Unfortunately, the common sense and equitable system described above is not what we have in place today. Instead, drivers who bring their vehicles into the most congested part of the city – i.e., the Central Business District (CBD), defined as Lower Manhattan south of 60th Street – are rewarded with free passage if they travel via one of the four toll-less East River bridges or from Upper Manhattan. Yet New York drivers using the crossings in the other boroughs where there is far less congestion – on bridges like the Throgs Neck, Whitestone, Verrazano, Cross Bay or RFK – pay out the nose. It doesn't take a world-class traffic engineer to know that such a system is patently unfair and a poor way to manage a large metropolitan area's traffic.

"Gridlock" Sam Schwartz: the Man with a Plan

Luckily, New York boasts its own world-class engineer who has come up with a cure to New York City's traffic ills. He is Brooklyn-born "Gridlock" Sam Schwartz, a former NYC traffic commissioner and venerated veteran of traffic management who is credited with coining the word "gridlock" in the 1970s. After forty years of analyzing and engineering transportation networks the world over, Sam has developed a regional traffic plan for New York City that would restore equity, reduce overall traffic and generate $1.5 billion in net revenue each year that would be used to modernize and expand our transit system and improve area roads and bridges – a boon to transit riders and drivers alike, not to mention the region's businesses and workers.

Under Sam's plan, a fee would be charged to drivers crossing into the CBD via the (currently free) East River bridges or from above 60th Street. Existing tolls into the CBD – i.e., the four tunnels crossing the East and Hudson Rivers – would stay the same, while the tolls on the MTA bridges around the outer perimeters of the city would be cut in half. E-Z Pass and camera technology would be used for collecting fares thus avoiding the need for traffic-jamming tollbooths. Moreover, money generated by the new system would be used to eliminate tollbooths where they currently exist thus speeding up travel throughout the region.

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By tolling the East River bridges, drivers would no longer "toll shop" (because all crossings would cost the same) thus distributing traffic evenly among the various bridges and tunnels leading into the CBD. The CBD entry tolls would reduce traffic into lower Manhattan by as much as 25%, translating into a significant reduction of cars and trucks traveling through the Bowery and the rest of Lower Manhattan as well as outside the CBD in parts of Brooklyn, Queens and the Bronx. That means safer streets and less air and noise pollution for the Bowery and dozens of other communities both inside and outside the CBD cordon area.

About a quarter of the $1.5 billion in net revenues (approximately $375 million a year) would be dedicated to improving area roads and bridges – in particular highways like the Belt Parkway, Van Wyck and Staten Island Expressways. The combination of rational tolling and improved roads will incentivize noisy and polluting trucks to get off city streets – where they are a menace to neighborhood safety and quality of life – and onto the highways that were originally built for them. The rest of the money – roughly $1.125 billion – will be invested in our transit system, each and every year! The result? Faster, cleaner, safer, more efficient, more widespread and more frequent bus, subway and commuter rail service to help move New Yorkers around the region.

Sam's plan also includes an element that will transform the city landscape: three new bicycle and pedestrian bridges into the CBD – the first bridges of any kind built since 1909 – that will further connect the boroughs of New York City. The three new "ribbon" bridges – each about 20 feet wide connecting Red Hook, Governor's Island and the Financial District; Greenpoint, Hunter's Point, and Midtown Manhattan; and Hoboken and Manhattan's West Side – will be built and maintained using nominal fees charged to cyclists and pedestrians crossing over them.

Unlike past plans, Sam's plan will ensure that Manhattanites pay their fair share. He achieves this by adding a surcharge onto yellow taxis, which occupy a lot of road space and are used predominantly by Manhattanites. Ditto for hired town cars that are mostly used by millionaires. He also removes the long-obsolete parking garage tax rebate in Manhattan, a perk that residents of the wealthiest borough no longer need. And he raises on-street parking rates to help further curb unnecessary trips, free up parking spaces, and bring the price of parking a car on the street closer to market rates.

Finally, you can't invest $1.5 billion per year in New York's transportation system without generating big benefits for the region's economy. Rough estimates predict 35,000 new permanent jobs in the New York metro area and about a $1 billion a year in new economic activity spurred by big construction projects and upgraded and expanded transit service.

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Public Opinion & The Question of Regressivity

Despite the clear and substantial benefits for all transit riders, most drivers and the region as a whole, Sam's regional transportation plan has not yet been fully tested in the court of public opinion.

When Mayor Bloomberg proposed his congestion pricing plan in 2007, the public and the New York State Legislature was initially enthusiastic until a number of legislators made it their mission to defeat the Mayor on the issue. Like Sam's plan, Bloomberg's version of traffic pricing similarly would have created a "cordon toll" around the CBD with the aim of reducing traffic congestion and raising revenues for mass transit improvements.

But Bloomberg's version of congestion pricing was very Manhattan-centric in that Lower Manhattanites would have received the biggest benefit, in the form of reduced traffic in the CBD, but paid the least amount of money into the 'kitty' because, unlike folks living outside the CBD, Lower Manhattanites don't generally travel into and out of the CBD every day and thus would not be subjected to the new tolls as often. Unlike Sam's plan, the Bloomberg plan did not balance the benefits to Lower Manhattan by slashing tolls in the "outer" boroughs where congestion is less of an issue. Nor did Mayor Bloomberg set aside money for road improvements, thus leaving suburban and borough drivers feeling as though they were being fleeced to subsidize transit riders.

Once politicians like New York State Assemblyman Richard Brodsky and others started to demagogue Bloomberg's proposal as a nod to the rich and a regressive tax on the poor, public opinion followed suit. Thus, the issue of regressivity – for moral and political reasons – is an important one to sort out. Is it unfair to charge more to drive into the CBD if it means pricing certain people – those who arguably can't afford the extra expense – out of that option? And is a proposal that includes such a feature regressive as a consequence?

Let's deconstruct what regressive means in this context and whether it can aptly be applied to Sam's plan or any congestion pricing plan. The term 'regressive' is generally considered shorthand for a regressive tax – a tax that has a disproportionately negative impact on lower income people because the tax represents a larger share of their overall income or assets as compared with higher income people. Setting aside the fact that many policy experts view tolls as a user fee rather than a tax, Sam Schwartz's proposed regional transportation plan is not, in my view, regressive.

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In looking at regressivity, it seems to me there are two central questions. First, is the act of charging all drivers a toll to come into a certain part of a city regressive by definition – i.e., because you are charging the same fee to everyone regardless of income? Second, assuming that the new tolls do have a regressive aspect vis-à-vis those lower income drivers for whom the net benefit (of higher tolls vs. the value of time saved) is negative, is the plan as a whole still regressive even if the new fee only negatively impacts a small minority of lower income people overall?

With regard to the first question, I would say that adding a fee to currently free crossings in a city where just about every other crossing has a toll is not regressive. Indeed, as my colleague Charles Komanoff put it, adding a new toll on the East River Bridges and across 60th Street is no different, in terms of regressivity, than "tolls on every [existing] MTA and Port Authority crossing, subway and bus fares, and, in fact, Yankees tickets, iTunes downloads, gasoline, and the proverbial quart of milk."

With regard to the second question, the people who benefit from Sam's plan dwarf the relatively small number of people who are harmed. This is also true if you look only at the effect of Sam's plan on lower income people as a whole, the vast majority of whom use mass transit and will benefit significantly from an upgraded and expanded transit system. So how many people will benefit under Sam's plan? It is impossible to predict with specificity but a reasonable starting point would be the more than 12 million people who live or work in the New York City metropolitan area and use MTA transit services or area roads, bridges and tunnels. And how will they benefit, exactly?

If you take public transit, which most of us do, you will enjoy a much-improved system for decades to come. If you ride your bike or walk, you'll appreciate less vehicular traffic, safer streets and cleaner air and you'll be able to travel between boroughs and between New Jersey and Manhattan via three new scenic bridges. If you're a driver who regularly drives into the CBD, you'll get there more quickly – and for most drivers, the time saved is more valuable than the toll paid. If you're a small business that delivers to the CBD or a tradesperson who has to drive into and around the CBD making multiple stops, you'll benefit from a nearly 20% reduction in traffic. Ditto for taxi riders trying to get to a meeting or the theater on time.

If you're a local retailer, studies show that you'll get more business by increasing the number of people who travel to your neighborhood by mass transit, bike or foot as opposed to by car. (Note that, as a result of Sam's plan, a net gain of 115,000 people is expected to travel into the CBD, by whatever means, thus increasing the number of potential retail customers.) If you're a business in the CBD, you'll see an increase in productivity and attendance rates because both your transit and auto-loving employees will travel to work faster. If you're a member of one of the dozens of local unions in the NYC area, or someone looking for work, your chances of keeping or finding a job will improve as a consequence of annual investments in infrastructure and a more mobile and productive work force. The list goes on and on but I think it is safe to say that the vast majority of New Yorkers living in the metro area will benefit from Sam's plan.

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Those that may experience a net loss from the plan include those drivers for whom the incremental cost of driving into the CBD will cause them to seek other transportation options or to drive into Lower Manhattan less frequently.

So how many "displaced" drivers are we talking about?

Of the approximately 3,500,000 people that travel by any means into the CBD each day, just 16%, or about 560,000 people, do so by vehicle (car or truck) and thus would be subject to the new CBD entry toll (this figure does not include people driving through the CBD but not stopping – e.g., the guy driving from NJ to Long Island via Manhattan); the other 84% commute by mass transit, bicycle or foot. And of those 560,000 drivers, we estimate that on account of the new tolls roughly 12% or 65,000 people will, on a given day, decide not to travel into the CBD by motor vehicle.

To put these numbers in perspective, that means that, on an average day, about 12% of CBD-bound drivers, less than 5% of total NYC area drivers, and something like 0.5% of the region's mobile population, will be adversely affected by Sam's plan.

While hardly a trivial number, 65,000 displaced drivers is fairly small when compared to the rest of region's approximately 12 million people who will benefit from a new fair and rational tolling system and massive investments in the region's transportation infrastructure. (And, of course, even displaced drivers will benefit from those same investments when they travel in and around New York City, whether by car, public transit or bike, as well as the discounted "outer" borough bridge tolls.)

No one wants to see a single person negatively affected by a given policy or new system. But from a policy-making standpoint, one has to make tough choices so as to improve the lives and economic opportunities for the majority of its citizens while achieving other goals important to society – in this case, reducing traffic, productivity and potential job losses, various forms of pollution, climate impacts, car accidents, etc. –all while modernizing an aging transit system that threatens to undermine New York's status as an international business capital and engine of economic growth.

Sam's plan is bold and visionary and will help transform life in New York for generations of New Yorkers. The Bowery, like every other community in and around the city, will benefit enormously. It is my hope that RIPP readers will join the campaign to help bring Sam's plan to life and help ensure New York remains one of the most livable and prosperous cities on earth.

Alex Matthiessen, the former Hudson Riverkeeper (2000-2010) and a special assistant at the U.S. Department of the Interior (1997-2000), is the founder and president of Matthiessen Strategies, an eco-political consultancy based in New York City. Alex is also the director of Move NY, a campaign to bring a rational transportation improvement and financing system to New York City.

To learn more about and get involved with the Move NY campaign, please visit
www.move-ny.org

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