Punk No Longer Chic on Bowery

You can tell that the meaning behind punk has been lost on today's young people when someone writes that it's "no longer chic..." Punk was never meant to be
"chic." Punk was created as the antithesis of chic. If you told a true punk rocker he or she was chic, you would have been in for a world of hurt in short order.

Putting a chi-chi boutique on the grave of CBs/Hilly Krystal, is akin to shutting down the African burial ground project and sticking a big condo on it with a big TRUMP sign in gold letters, vis-a-vis the Poltergeist movie. Sure, I dated myself there, but I was only a kid myself when I saw it, so listen up!.

Whatever the case, punk as it was in those times may not be something you can recapture (and if you think it was only five years in the making, you should bone up on your music history.) It's not natural to try to remake something that came and went; few people can. Just listen to one of the sterlized-punk wannabe groups out today like The Killers, compare it to Black Flag or perhaps The Dead Milkmen, etc, and you'll know what I mean.

But CBs wasn't just about punk. Those who knows its history know that its recently deceased owner never even planned to play rock music there of any kind.
The people that were attracted there just came by circumstance. It was in the right time and place to evolve into a medium for young, struggling artists; a chance to explore and expose their creative juices, while expressing and reflecting social, political and emotional standpoints of their generation. CBs had the right environment for harnessing, caressing and sustaining that sort of enthusiasm. It was small, no nonsense and you didn't have to be a trustifarian hipster kid to afford the cover and drinks. It still was that kind of place when it was taken from NYC by a misguided landlord, who selfishly, arrogantly believed that only his own interests were what mattered.

A boutique however, IS the kind of place only those hipsters can afford. Boutiques are not original. And the clothes bought there will not only be unoriginal ( even fashion is just all throwbacks to older generations), but they won't even last, unlike the great bands and the moments that passed through the Bowery.

Though the history of CBs was steeped in one style of rock, other kinds were always welcome. Talking Heads started there, but were never considered punk. Hardcore of the 90s thrived there, and modern bands were finding their voice there as well.
Many fought to keep CBs. It wasn't enough, but the large numbers of fans that fought to preserve it should tell us something about how much a place like that means to NY.

You don't have to try and be a punk of the 70s and 80s for a place like CBs to be worthwhile, but if you think just one more boutique is what should go in its place, instead of something unique, interesting and embracing of a real community with real human spirit, you are NOT what NYC needs right now. We have enough chain stores.

Move out! Go to the Mall of America and stay there.