New York's rock and roll history

Manhattan venues such as CBGB, the Fillmore East, and Max's Kansas City have become part of the fabric of rock'n'roll mythology. CBGB is famous for being the launch pad of American punk in the 1970s, when it helped bands as diverse as Blondie, Talking Heads and The Ramones to become stars. The Fillmore East hosted gigs by Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and many of the rock greats back in the late-1960s, while Max's was the stomping ground of influential art-rock band The Velvet Underground.

With this exemplary rock history in mind, visitors to Manhattan may be surprised by the lack of an active rock scene on the island today. Most of the rock clubs have closed, driven out by the high rents caused by gentrification. New venues have opened up across the East River in Brooklyn, and musicians, who once used to live cheaply in the East Village, have followed them across the Brooklyn Bridge.

But although rock'n'roll seems to have deserted the island, visitors with an interest in rock music can have an enjoyable time walking among the ghosts of musical Manhattan's venerable past. Some institutions such as CBGB have disappeared, victims of property developers or greedy landlords. Other landmarks like St Marks Place, which was home to hippies and then punks, are still around in a diminished form, trading on their past glory.

A good place to start a rock history tour of Manhattan is the storefront formerly known as CBGB (315 The Bowery). This New York legend, which opened in 1973 and shut down after a protracted battle with its landlords in 2006, is now a John Varvatos clothing store. The venue is known as the birthplace of American punk rock, although it achieved mainstream fame because of the graffitied and grime-encrusted interior walls, and a popular line of T-shirts launched by its entrepreneurial owner, the late Hilly Kristal.

Godlis, who goes by that singular moniker, was the long-time photographer of the CBGB scene, and took many iconic pictures of bands such as The Ramones. He says the club took off in the mid-1970s because there was nowhere else in New York that would let new bands perform original material.

"There wasn't a circuit for bands doing their own songs," Godlis remembers. "That's why they all went to CBGB. There were a lot of interesting bands playing there, like Television, Patti Smith, Blondie and Talking Heads. Hilly Kristal would always allow people to play if they had something new and different. He had a great sound system, and it was in a relatively unpopulated area that was cool to come down to."

Walk north along the Bowery for three blocks, and turn right down East 6th Street to reach the former location of the Fillmore East (105 2nd Avenue). This was once the go-to place for New York's hippy culture. The Fillmore was opened in 1968 by entrepreneur Bill Graham as an east coast sister venue to the famed Fillmore in San Francisco.