Speaker 1:
Taking a Walk With Buzz Knight.
Buzz Knight:
Well, hi. I’m Buzz Knight, and I’m the host of the Taking A Walk podcast series. Danny Fields, it’s so nice to be taking a walk with you in the lovely West Village.
Danny Fields:
Yeah. This used to be a little more racy, and avant garde, and experimental, and young and gay, and old and eccentric. We’re on famous 10th Street. Over there is Christopher Street, which people conflate with gay liberation, So, what in America is called Gay Pride Day or something, in Germany, it is Christopher Street Day.
Buzz Knight:
Really?
Danny Fields:
CSD, and they would say, “Oh, you’re here for CSD?” And people go, “What?” Christopher Street, they named the holiday after the dreadful Christopher Street. I wish there were more interesting people living here now, but they’re not. They’re boring, and you see nannies with thousand dollar baby carriages, and mom and dad are off making a lot of money.
Buzz Knight:
So, it is way different obviously than the day.
Danny Fields:
Oh, God. It’s so different. My first apartment in Greenwich Village was $99 a month, and that was in the early 1960s, which was a long time ago, but still, $99. But the median for a one bedroom in Manhattan now is 4,000 a month. Right.
Buzz Knight:
Do you like walking around still in-
Danny Fields:
No. Not at all, still. I just hate it.
Buzz Knight:
It’s too much.
Danny Fields:
No, it’s not too much. It’s too nothing.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. I’m saying, it’s-
Danny Fields:
It’s all these little boutique shops and designer stuff. The street became a high-end shopping street. You see the street is falling into the earth. They do this a lot. There’s no street anymore. It’s metal plates. This on the next corner was the famous Pink Tea Cup, where they started rock and roll, sort of.
Buzz Knight:
So, the typical routine was … started what time of the day, when you would just go hang and listen to music, and hang with friends and-
Danny Fields:
Oh, well that was so good, because any office job that involved anything to do with show business or music, I wouldn’t come in until 12, one o’clock, because had to assume I was hanging out.
Buzz Knight:
Of course
Danny Fields:
That was good, because I can’t really get up before noon, anyhow. This was Italian sort of second and third generation immigrants. That was the Village. It’s quaint compared to the Upper East Side, and it’s no so busy, incredibly packed and all that as Upper West Side. But the place to live now is way downtown, where they’re converting old office buildings into big apartments. See, that was open. It was a big café. This sidewalk, that whole corner is gone. They’re just boarded up.
And the reason … I don’t mean to sound snotty. You asked before, do I just go walking around. Why? I mean, why? To see drugstores and banks? I’m so spoiled. I’m staying in Soho, and you just walk out, and it was a show, better than any show that you paid a lot of money for to see. But look, it’s a bank. John Lennon once claimed Sheridan Square is the center of the world. This is Sheridan Square. Does this look like the center of the world to you?
Buzz Knight:
No.
Danny Fields:
Not to me.
Buzz Knight:
What year did you move to the village?
Danny Fields:
When I got out of Harvard Law School in 1960, and I lived in a hotel that was $70 a month. It was just off Washington Square Park. I had to sleep with the toothpaste under my pillow, or else it would be frozen solid in the morning. That’s the Village Plaza Hotel. Now, it’s posh apartment housing called Village Plaza. That’s the gay part, because here’s the Stonewall.
Buzz Knight:
I’m sorry, Danny, right here, this is a fairly notorious spot, right?
Danny Fields:
This is Kettle of Fish. I have never set foot in it. I have no idea what goes on, but it’s still here
Buzz Knight:
Early Village music scene
Danny Fields:
It’s here. This happened to be the place that wasn’t paying enough protection, so the police raided it, and the drag queens began protesting and throwing things. This was a famous liquor store. Oh, and Lou Reed went … This is the best part. You see all the red bricks?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
He lived in that apartment.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, he did? Wow.
Danny Fields:
Yeah, and one night after his concert at The Bottom Line, he brought home the tape of the concert. I loved him very much, and I’m not saying anything derogatory about Lou because I never would and I loved him very much. He was a sweet guy. He put the tape on. The shows are over. It was like 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. You would come by here. The windows were open. I swear the speakers were pointed out. Lou was listening to his performance earlier that night, and so was everybody else within a square mile. This is a quaint, charming village. It’s all owned by NYU.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, most of this area, right, is NYU?
Danny Fields:
Yeah. They’re blocked on a $30 billion expansion now. When I was in high school … I want to show you that building, 1 5th Avenue. I have a good story about it. NYU was the, when you couldn’t get into any school, and your parents wouldn’t send you out of town, it was NYU. It was really for the bottom 20 percentile.
If you don’t see [inaudible 00:07:45] there are individuals [inaudible 00:07:50] subdivided. But a few of these houses are intact as they were when they were built for … We’re here on Wall Street. This was a suburb, because it was a mile or two miles by horse and carriage. The East 80s, where the mayor’s mansion is now, was once the summer mansion of the Riker family. No. Riker’s Island, where the prison is, was the summer mansion. There’s some other ones. But going to the East 80s was five hours …
Buzz Knight:
Really?
Danny Fields:
… from Wall Street.
Buzz Knight:
What?
Danny Fields:
Yeah, so that was like your weekend in the country, going to 80th Street.
Buzz Knight:
Isn’t that funny?
Danny Fields:
North of 23rd Street was really uptown, and 42nd Street where the library is now was a reservoir, and you walked around the edge of it.
Buzz Knight:
Well, go back to what you were talking about, how in London, things haven’t really changed this dramatically. Why is that?
Danny Fields:
Well, they have, and my gym that used to close at 11:00 now closes at 10:00. So, why that? Oh, well we had very restrictive areas during the lockdown. Yes, but it’s over. It was really nice, having a gym that lasts until 11:00.
But there was a shrinking. When we went in December of last year, Christmas through January, to London. It seemed like 70% of London was there, but of course, all the big cities were closed down. Restaurants were closed down, and none of them ever knew if they’d be able to open again, because who knew what was happening?
Buzz Knight:
Right.
Danny Fields:
That on the corner was the Hotel Earle. It was really cheap. That’s where rock and roll bands stayed. Most of this was the Village, and probably $30, $40 a night. Now, it’s the Hotel Washington Square, and it’s like $500 a night for a room.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, jeez.
Danny Fields:
This is a high-end gourmet restaurant. These here on the north side of the Square were the private mansions of, again, people who were in business, finance, downtown. This was pretty far north. This was like, “Okay, will be acceptable, I think.” Henry James Washington Square is one of those imaginarily sat in one of those first two houses. See NYU?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
This is sort of a druggie corner. At NYU, they say, “Who needs a campus? We have Washington Square Park.”
Buzz Knight:
Has it always been that corner?
Danny Fields:
What, has it always been-
Buzz Knight:
The drug corner of the park over-
Danny Fields:
The whole park was.
Buzz Knight:
The whole park.
Danny Fields:
You couldn’t walk down from there to there without, “Hey, $5 bags, I got them.” It still is, to some degree.
Danny Fields:
You can sort of see. But these were mansions, and behind it, I’ll show you, was the view. It’s the stables. This is what they do when they try to pretend they are preserving the quality of the neighborhood. They tear down a bunch of these and build that. You’re supposed to think this is from 1811. Oh, look how it blends in with these 200 year old houses. This was a splendid place to live.
Buzz Knight:
The park is active. There’s a lot of activity going on always.
Danny Fields:
Yeah. It’s Washington Square. This is where David Peel recorded Have a Marijuana, which if you … That title, there’s no such thing as Have a Marijuana, right? I mean, no one says that, “Have a marijuana.” But I was reading in Time Magazine an account of an anti-war protest that stormed into Grand Central Station, and the writer of the article said a crowd of hippies burst in singing Have a Marijuana. Well, the song is I Like Marijuana, but he had a little bit of a speech defect. So, when he would go (singing), so the guy said, “Singing Have a Marijuana.” I said, “There’s the title of the album.”
Buzz Knight:
That was it.
Danny Fields:
That was it.
Buzz Knight:
That was gold.
Danny Fields:
That was a typo. I mean, not a typo, it was a misrecord. See, behind it is with little carriage houses, which are now three to four million dollars, and someone lives up there.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, man.
Danny Fields:
It’s an apartment. There’s the door. I don’t know what its title is. But Eleanor Roosevelt lived there. They hardly ever lived here, other than-
Buzz Knight:
But she lived over on that side, Eleanor?
Danny Fields:
On that side, the Washington Square West. They built a special elevator in case the president ever wanted to come and see his wife’s newer New York apartment. He used it once, I think in the ’44 campaign, once to change.
Buzz Knight:
Really?
Danny Fields:
Yeah.
Buzz Knight:
He just had to pick up some shoes that he-
Danny Fields:
Yeah. Well, you know, it was-
Buzz Knight:
The sound you hear are skateboarders.
Danny Fields:
Yeah. You see these trashy … This was never here. This was completely illegal. You could not sell things in Washington Square. With the lockdown, and the loosening of everything, you didn’t know what kind of world you were. This is what it’s become. Oh, I missed the part of 4th Street between 7th and Hudson, which is where Bob was living when he wrote Positively 4th Street Here, it’s called Washington Square South, and then it becomes 4th Street again. But that is 4th Street.
Buzz Knight:
Were there other concerts here, besides David Peel?
Danny Fields:
It was not a concert. I think there was a song, Washington Square, where on Sundays, unaccompanied or acoustic singers would sing in little crowds. But Washington Square, it’s something like a songwriter finds his destiny in Washington Square. Once a week, he can come here and sing for free. David was sort of by that tree, and this is where I stopped and said, “Oh my God, this is that album.” One of those lampposts is really the electricity.
Buzz Knight:
Could they pull that off today?
Danny Fields:
Look what they’re pulling off.. Here’s all these roads.. There was a big lobby with terraces around each floor. They found out during finals time, everyone who] was jumping off the building. They cleaned up the bodies. NYU students were jumping off the balcony. That’s NYU. Let’s get a look at the suicide lobby. See, it’s kind of pleasant over here.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. It’s different.
Danny Fields:
You have to see what they did. See the suicide … See that metal fence?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
That was never there. So, at finals time, there were just kids flying off the balcony, because the railing’s only that high. So, “We need your tuition, so we’re going to invest in a fence.”
I have to, every day, right there, September 7th, 2018. I was getting out of a taxi to see my friend doing a poetry panel there, and my hand was on the door, one of those doors. He stepped on the accelerator, and I went flying and smashed this.
Buzz Knight:
Ooh boy.
Danny Fields:
Emergency surgery. Still haven’t gotten a penny.
Buzz Knight:
Oof.
Danny Fields:
I know. The lawyers were working on it because, “We expect a break any week.” You expect a week? You can’t drive a cab or own a cab without taking out insurance on it. That’s part of the way you get your taxi owner’s license.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Oof. How does it feel?
Danny Fields:
Well, it feels sucky. We are now on East 4th Street. It’s one of those odd streets that act … You know in London, the street name will change three times in one block?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
Even though it twists and turns, it still remains 4th Street. There’s still logic. That, there were three apartment houses looking like that piece of shit, and those were the apartment houses that were going to have the 5th Avenue South address, because the same time Robert Moses was planning to build a highway through the square, and of course, he was invested in this building, financially invested in the building, and putting a highway through Washington Square so the building that he was a partner in owning could now demand higher prices.
This is Mercer Street, and where that cab is was the Mercer Street Hotel, which is where the New York Dolls played. That was New York rock and roll, and it was a scene. They played there once every few weeks, and they would pick the coolest, hippest, and wildest people in the city. It was the New York Dolls, and they really loved it. It collapsed one day. It just started to rumble and … It was the great society hotel of the 1880s. That was the Mercer Art Center. It was really-
Buzz Knight:
Beautiful building, God.
Danny Fields:
That’s not it. That’s another building. The building that-
Buzz Knight:
To the right.
Danny Fields:
It does not exist.
Buzz Knight:
The Bottom Line, any particular anecdotes from that place?
Danny Fields:
No. It was wonderful that it was there. It was kind of an ordeal. Sit in your seat, wait for your waitress, order your french fries, make sure they know the record company’s picking up the bill. Just like that. Here comes the show. It has to be over now. No more encores. The dressing room was about the size of that. I’m sure there are histories that say who played at the Bottom Line, and it will be a who’s who of every act that broke in the ’70s.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. I remember there was the Springsteen show that NEWFM broadcast from there, which was sort of pivotal for his beginning.
Danny Fields:
This was Broadway. These were great office buildings. I mean, look at the size of them. You know what a great office building looks like now. It’s 80 stories high. These were them. So, whenever possible, they’re still existing, being turned into residential lofts, which are 10 million. Remember my building?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
It’s the same era.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, wow.
Danny Fields:
You can sort of tell. They were big on arches. That was 1890s, 1880s. Each one of these buildings was a prize for your business, prestige that you had a building on Broadway. Now, they’re good for nothing but rich artists. Down the street, same thing. Ray Jones is 3rd Street. For some reason, it’s. It’s like London. There’s no reason for it but to become [inaudible 00:29:49]. These buildings were cast iron fronts. They are super protected. One of the great eras of 19th Century architecture was cast iron. They all looked like that.
Buzz Knight:
So, Danny, what are you doing these days, other than walking with me?
Danny Fields:
I’ve got two guys there, again organizing my archives. I don’t like the way the photographs were organized. Every drawer in about eight filing cabinets had a huge folder called MISC. That’s where everything went.
Okay, that was the opera house. That’s the New York Public Theater. That’s old. That’s from another era. It’s all modern now. Lafayette Street becomes 4th Avenue, and that’s another one of those buildings, unless it’s the same one I pointed to before. It was built by the same architect who did my building. Downstairs was a club called … There was a cabaret. Joan Rivers would play there, Bette Midler, and it was like that. Here comes the old seamans, merchants, old sea merchant’s house. There’s a building that was long ago designated for [inaudible 00:31:25]. So, it has this whole part that looked like that, and that was a private house. Okay, here’s the old merchant’s house.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, yeah.
Danny Fields:
What was there? What was there? I don’t know. We’ll never know. Something was there. Now, it’s an awful little parkette. Now, we’ve come to the Bowery, which is 3rd Avenue, but it’s called the Bowery down here. This was the first street in America, or the world or something, to have electric lights. So, we’re really going back. This was a slum. Madonna lived on 5th Street between here and the next block. That was her first apartment. That would be on my tour. Next time, we’ll go up and see where her triplex was on Central Park. Something that we loved that we here, but it’s gone. It had a garden. It was lovely.
Buzz Knight:
But this place, the Bowery would’ve been-
Danny Fields:
Oh, it was bums.
Buzz Knight:
All bums.
Danny Fields:
Winos. Old bums and winos. Now, it’s [inaudible 00:33:12]. Oh, okay. Really? That’s nice. They really know where they’re working, right?
Buzz Knight:
Yes.
Danny Fields:
Nobody would come here. We had a band playing at CB’s, which is on the next block. “I can’t go to that neighborhood, because it’s just drunks.” They’re not wild outlaws with AR-15s. They’re just drunks. “No, can’t go there. It’s too disgusting. They always ask me for money, or they’re filthy, or they smell.” It was the disgrace of New York. This was skid row.
Buzz Knight:
So, you had passed your archives on to Yale, or some of your archives?
Danny Fields:
. Yes. 75 cartons. It took three shipments from their van, and I look around, and I don’t see a lot of space here now.
Buzz Knight:
You still have a few things.
Danny Fields:
They’ve never asked for my art to hang on the wall. They never asked for my photographs, which I’d be happy to get them digitized, because they don’t … They just want the record. There comes a point where they like the very original thing, the original tape. What is a tape? It’s not handmade, okay? So, it was all these … This was a theater. It’s very cool. [inaudible 00:34:58] Street to 2nd Street. Now, I will show you, CBGB’s is now an extremely pretentious t-shirt store.
Buzz Knight:
Really?
Danny Fields:
You’ll see. Ramones’ Central. This says Joey Ramones’ Way, you might want to notice, because this is Ramones’.
Buzz Knight:
This was Ramones’ territory.
Danny Fields:
Yeah. That’s the most stolen street sign in New York.
Buzz Knight:
I bet.
Danny Fields:
At one point, they had it so high, you couldn’t read it, but you couldn’t steal it, either. 62nd Street is where the Ramones’ art director, Arturo Vega, who was very brilliant and wonderful, lived, that building with the white frames. The Ramones would use it as their dressing room. The dressing room was maybe that size, okay? There was a shower curtain in front of it. So, between sets or whatever, they would gather, and they all lived there, in their time.
There was an alley behind CBGB’s. It was a delivery alley. There is a famous cemetery. I don’t even know if you could ever get in there because it’s so old. But let’s look around the corner. I’ll show you the CB’s universe.
Buzz Knight:
A little different than it was back then.
Danny Fields:
Smart people were finding bargain lofts and weren’t bothered by drunks passed out on the sidewalk because they can’t really hurt you. So Bowery and Bleaker, that’s the end of Bleaker. That was the famous corner where you got out of your taxis and went to CB’s. None of these storefronts existed then. I don’t know what they were.
These were blockhouses. What you see is the second floor, and the sign would say Washington Hotel, or Central Hotel or something, but they were just cots lined up]. It was 25 cents a night, and voila, CBGB’s. I tried to pretend … Now, in New York, if you vacate a space, and someone else moves in, that has nothing to do with who was there before, but they cling to the myth of this itself is sacred. This is the CBGB’s. It’s not. CB’s moved out, and a clothing store moved in. Are you open?
Speaker 4:
I’m sorry?
Danny Fields:
Are you open?
Speaker 4:
No, we’re not.
Danny Fields:
Okay. This was empty lots, so we would do our pot smoking out here. This was an empty lot, bums on the sidewalk, but you get an idea. Some of the buildings are very like that, and some of them are 19th Century tenements like those.
Buzz Knight:
Amazing.
Danny Fields:
Here, these rich young marrieds, their parents bought them apartments here. It’s considered very chic. This is a gallery. This is [inaudible 00:38:45]. This is Arturo Vega, who was an artist and lived over there, and was a very dear friend of the owner. [inaudible 00:39:02]. I’m waiting for someone to say, “Danny,.” This became sort of the gallery for the CB’s people, photographers Out here is the world’s filthiest garbage alley where I took The Ramones’ Rocket to Russia album cover, and this is, you are knee deep in garbage and rats. One of those was the stage loading and the equipment door to CBGB’s.
You can see Arturo’s apartment. This was a brick wall, and they leaned against it. There was a truck Billy Crystal was in, the movie [inaudible 00:39:56]. He moved here. He had a truck. It was parked back here. There’s a famous picture of The Ramones sitting on the flap of the truck surrounded by mounds of garbage. Now, it’s [inaudible 00:40:13]. This is what the future of New York holds for us.
But this was so disgusting. If they said this is Bombay, you’d go, “Oh, now I know what a real slum looks like.” Filth, but you didn’t care. The trucks pulled up, you loaded up your guitars, and people hung out here because the backstage was too tiny. 2nd Street, where Arturo was staying, and where you used to be able to see into the alley where I took the [inaudible 00:40:49]. Dee Dee lived at the building, and Joey lived there, so that’s Ramones territory. You won’t see a trace of the Fillmore. You got the cover of Allman Brothers Live at the Fillmore East?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
Okay, and they’re sitting in front of a brick wall?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
That brick wall was not the Fillmore East. It’s somewhere in Georgia.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, boy.
Danny Fields:
This is still a vibrant neighborhood. As you can see, compared to where I live, this is what I would call moderately vibrant. There are things open. There are people walking around. It’s civilized and pleasant.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah, it’s alive.
Danny Fields:
It’s not beautiful, but that was where the Fillmore, the auditorium-
Buzz Knight:
Oh, wow.
Danny Fields:
This very street was where Elektra Records, in conjunction with WNEW, took over the Fillmore East for a night in 1968 to introduce the MC5 to New York.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Danny Fields:
So, the weeks before, they promised 500 tickets to the community. Okay, so the community had never received its tickets, and they were angry, and they were swarming here. It was mainly the motherfuckers who are the most extremely ugly people anyone has ever seen, the motherfuckers. They would nurse their babies in the theater seats, and change diapers in telephone booths. They were really disgusting. They were really angry.
It was my responsibility to get the MC5 down here. How do you travel when you’re a band? You hire a limo. Well, it was like throwing anything decent in their faces. This was capitalist greed and horror, was symbolized by that. Come on. That’s how you go to funerals and weddings. You take people around. It’s not a white limousine, like a band’s limousine. We rented a limousine because there’s a lot of us to get down here. So, these people went wild.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Danny Fields:
They stormed in. See, that was the theater. That’s [inaudible 00:43:21]. They stormed in swinging chains. MC5, I told them, “Go stay in your dressing room until this happily blows over.” But the evening disintegrated into [inaudible 00:43:42] for Annie W., Elektra Records, the MC5, me. You couldn’t dirty the motherfuckers because they were so dirty to begin with.
But those 500 tickets were found in the drawer of the theater’s manager. As much as we hate him, he was an asshole, but he never did give them out, because he didn’t like them shitting in the aisles. He was determined. He thought he could somehow not give them, 500 angry, ugly people, their free tickets to this band of the revolution. So, they were denied that, so they were on edge. Then, we pull up right here with a limo, and fucking hell broke loose. Bill Graham claims he was hit over the head and his nose broken by Rob Tyner, the lead singer of the MC5, who wouldn’t step on an ant, the world’s least violent and sweetest person, who was up in the dressing room.
So, I had a pass, being press and [inaudible 00:44:54], and it was a little yellow card, and it said, “This will admit the bearer.” The time, it was expired, okay? So, a few weeks later, I went in to see another band, the usual business, and outside Bill’s office, I said to his assistant, “Oh, I need this renewed. Could you ask Bill to …” I thought everything had been settled between Jack Holtzman, and Graham, and Annie W. The card comes back torn in two, “Fuck you.” Bill Graham.
Buzz Knight:
Wow.
Danny Fields:
I didn’t hit him over the head.
Buzz Knight:
Oh, man.
Danny Fields:
I know.
Buzz Knight:
Danny. Danny. Danny. The beautiful part about taking a walk with you is, you’re not just telling a story. You lived in the story.
Danny Fields:
Oh, yeah. When you’re 100 years old, you live. 6th Street was Bill Graham Way. You see that sign?
Buzz Knight:
Yeah.
Danny Fields:
I think that says Bill Graham Way because of the Fillmore.
Buzz Knight:
Well, Danny, I told you were going to do a little saunter. We did a nice long walk.
Danny Fields:
Oh, yeah.
Buzz Knight:
We did a lot of steps.
Danny Fields:
We had to do, and we never did uptown.
Buzz Knight:
Did you ever count your photographs, how many that you actually have?
Danny Fields:
I guess hundreds of thousands.
Buzz Knight:
Yeah. Danny.
Danny Fields:
This was such fun.
Buzz Knight:
Thank you so much.
Buzz Knight:
Let’s do it again.
Danny Fields:
I have to tell you about my last disaster some, but yes, we will.
Buzz Knight:
I hope so.
Danny Fields:
I bus tour with non-English-speaking Belgians with blue hair who only want to know where Michael Jackson lived. Go ahead.
Buzz Knight:
Thanks, Danny.
Danny Fields:
Take care.
Buzz Knight:
Okay, appreciate your generosity.
Danny Fields:
Absolutely.
Buzz Knight:
Thank you very much.
Speaker 1:
Taking a Walk With Buzz Knight is available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
About The Author
Buzz Knight
Buzz Knight is an established media executive with a long history of content creation and multi-platform distribution.
After a successful career as a Radio Executive, he formed Buzz Knight Media which focuses on strategic guidance and the development of new original content.
