The Velvet Underground Map Of New York
Posted: 31 Oct 2019 03:47
When I was doing What Goes On I had an idea for a guided tour of the VU's New York, which would take visitors to (the exteriors of, at least) such sites as the Silver Factory, the Dom, 56 Ludlow St., Max's Kansas City and so on. Residing 250 miles away made that difficult to pull off, and my attempts to convince any New York locals to undertake the project came to naught.
Given the relatively primitive state of research at that time, I doubt I could've done nearly as good a job of showing the VU's NYC than London design firm Herb Lester Associates has done with its printed Velvet Underground Map of New York. It's a folded one-sheet that gives the street address and a paragraph of quite accurate information on 49 distinct map points, including:
The Gymnasium
Delmonico Hotel
Scepter Studios
Filmmakers' Cinematheque (I and II)
Cafe's Wha? and Bizarre
several personal residences
Broome St. rehearsal space
Pickwick Records, for those contemplating a leisurely side-trip to Queens
and all of the aforementioned
The design is nice, but the real strength is the text. I don't know what the conversion rate between $ and £ is today, but £4 strikes me as a quite reasonable price. The VU map is at https://shop.herblester.com/products/ve ... city-guide; click Shop to find other HLA maps, including Bob Dylan's New York, Punk London, Old L.A. and so on.