My boss for the past 27 years, Larry Schneiderman, was a regular at the Fillmore East, as was my good friend Jahn Xavier,and though it was a little before I became a new yorker, Bill Graham’s House is a legend that is now an Apple bank.
The Apple Bank – Fillmore is located at 105 Second Avenue and the Manhattan Branch is to Host Landmark Plaque Unveiling Honoring Fillmore East.
It makes you feel old when you discover the haunts of your youth are now landmarks, but still there is still something standing where you once lived. In my drinking days there was a pub on 30th Avenue, it was open 24-7 though you had to know them to get in after closing time. It was a great place, on a Saturday night – Sunday morning I’d wake up ar 3am and stagger down there till 7am, the best four hours of my life, a really happy place to hangout. I wish it had a landmark plaque.
The unveiling is on October 29th… here is the info…
“The Church of Rock and Roll” to be memorialized by Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation on October 29, 2014
NEW YORK, NY – October 17, 2014 – Apple Bank for Savings, in conjunction with the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation and Two Boots Pizza, will be hosting a landmark plaque unveiling honoring Fillmore East, the iconic concert hall formerly located at 105 Second Avenue in the East Village, on October 29, 2014 at 5:00 pm. The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation will be unveiling a plaque dedicated to what had been the home of “the church of rock and roll” from 1968 to 1971 and where the greatest rock musicians from Jimi Hendrix to Janis Joplin to the Grateful Dead had performed.
The plaque unveiling will take place outside 105 Second Avenue, which is now the site of an Apple Bank branch, and will also include appearances by performers who played the Fillmore. After the unveiling, a reception will be held inside the Apple Bank branch. Pizza will be served, courtesy of Two Boots, along with desserts and soft drinks provided by Apple Bank. The plaque unveiling and reception are open to the public.
Event speakers will include Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation; Phil Hartman, founder of Two Boots Pizza, financial sponsor of the landmark plaque program; and Krystyna Szabunka, Vice President and Branch Manager of Apple Bank’s 105 Second Avenue branch.
Originally built as a Yiddish Theater in the mid-1920s along a section of Second Avenue known as the “Yiddish Theater District,” 105 Second Avenue was later turned into a movie theater. In 1967, rock promoter Bill Graham, who also owned the Fillmore West in San Francisco, took over the theater and opened its doors on March 8, 1968 as the Fillmore East. This deceptively small-looking building from the outside actually seated 2,700, and soon became the most sought after venue for the best rock groups in the country.
In its three-year-plus span, Fillmore East hosted two-show, triple-bill concerts several nights a week. Performing artists included The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, Frank Zappa, Miles Davis, Joe Cocker, The Doors and many other great rock, folk and blues musicians of that era. Fillmore East closed in 1971 and performing at the last concert were the Allman Brothers, The J. Geils Band, Albert King and The Beach Boys.
