EXTRA! The PUNK Magazine/Overthrow/Everlast Collection Is On Sale Now!
The PUNK Magazine comeback is on the way!
When Joey Goodwin, the owner of the Overthrow boxing clubs, had the opportunity to open a gym on 9 Bleecker Street they soon discovered that this was the former home of the Youth International Party (YIPPIE), formed back in the 1960s by Abbie Hoffman, Paul Krassner and some other weird maniacs. After Joey checked out the space for his new gym, he fell in love with the building and wanted to embrace the counterculture that it represented. He wanted the building to respect that YIPPIES (as weird as they were) and the strange energy they brought to the Lower East Side back in the day. So they co-partnered with local legends like David Peel and Clayton Patterson, and hosted legendary photographer Robert Frank in the building, allowing him to live there until his death in 2019.
Now, many years later, Joey Goodwin has put together a clothing line with his boxing club/gym, with Everlast (the boxing/sporting goods company) and PUNK Magazine!
I encourage everyone who is a fan of my work and PUNK Magazine to visit 9 Bleecker as soon as possible. They’ve put together the best exhibition of PUNK Magazine since the Howl Happening show in 2016 (which took place just a block away). I’m working on doing something bigger for the official 50th Anniversary date, so stay tuned.
The clothing is now available for sale at Dover Street (a high-end fashion boutique located at 160 Lexington Avenue), at 9 Bleecker Street and online at:
Hit the SHOP PUNK button! There, you can see all of the clothing and other items available. (PUNK socks, anyone?)
The storefront is currently decorated with a huge display of PUNK Magazine/Overthrow/Everlast images. It reminds me of the “Watch Out! PUNK Is Coming” poster campaign we did before our first issue was published 48 years ago, when we plastered the “Watch Out! PUNK Is Coming!” posters all over the wall space near East 2nd Street and the Bowery. Here we are back in the neighborhood, making our comeback!
I hope some of the clothing merch is still up and available for sale when the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash (JRBB) takes place on May 19 (probably at the Bowery Electric as usual, which is just a few blocks away). I know a lot of my newsletter readers plan to visit NYC for the JRBB and this would be convenient for them. The Overthrow boxing club is just a stone’s throw away from the original CBGB club (now the Varvatos store) on Bleecker and the Bowery. And of course the Joey Ramone Place street sign is still at East 2nd Street and the Bowery. I am planning to stage an event or two for the JRBB, maybe at the Metropolis vintage clothing store, probably at Overthrow, maybe at other locations.
Overthrow owner Joey Goodwin isn’t sure if all the “brand collaboration” stuff will sell out by then (it would be great if it did, I’ll have enough money to publisha new issue if that happens), so use your judgement if you plan to go to the Joey Ramone Birthday Bash on May 19. Hey—maybe some of the swag will be sold as clearance items by then? Or maybe everything will be sold out already. Who knows? Life is a mystery.
I did some research into the 9 Bleecker Street building for an article I wrote for the Overthrow newspaper, but left this part out for space reasons:
The History of 9 Bleecker Street
The three-story Renaissance-revival office building was built in 1884. Designed by Frederick C. Withers as a house, it is clad in red brick, three bays wide. It has projecting sandstone window sills, a wrought-iron fire escape, and a historic brick roof parapet featuring corbels and dentils. In 1893, a one-story rear addition, designed by noted architect William Tubby, was constructed by owner Mary Wright. At the time, the building was being used for the storage of cigar boxes. By the 1920s, when this area was the center of the city's fur trade, the building was occupied by a number of fur businesses. In 1945, it was purchased by Abraham Helman, whose trucking business, Helman Trucking Corp., occupied the building until about 1960.
By the mid-1960s, as the post-war decline in the city's manufacturing base left much vacant commercial space, loft dwellers took over the upper stories of this building.
The countercultural history of 9 Bleecker, which is between the Bowery and Lafayette Street, extends back to the late 60's. Patrick Firpo, the inventor of Pablo's Lightshow, a fixture at rock concerts of the era, rented the building for a time, and it served briefly as the home for a chapter of the Diggers, a San Francisco group that provided free food and clothing to hippies and drifters.
Nowadays the building is part museum and part boxing gym. Members might be punching a heavy bag in the basement, sparring in the ring on the ground floor, or working out in the weight room upstairs. The walls are decorated with old hippie, YIPPIE and punk rock posters. So whenever you get the opportunity, check out the Overthrow building. It’s one of those East Village businesses that remind you of the bad old daze.
As we leave Overthrow, we can check out Dover Street, which is one of the hottest fashion stores in the world. For some weird reason, they agreed to sell PUNK Magazine/Everlast/Overthrow merch… Yes! The world HAS gone totally insane!
THE DOVER STREET BASEMENT
“Hey, daddy-O! I wanna go! Down to that basement! There’s something down there!”
Sorry for the bad Ramones song lyric parody there, but it’s kind of fitting that when PUNK Magazine received our debut at a high-end fashion boutique and that we would end up in the basement.
And what a cultural moment! A 48-year-old underground East Village brand that has somehow become world-famous over the years is now branded along with a boxing club and the world’s largest sporting goods company.
To me, the strangest coincidence about the Dover Street connection is that the comedy group I ran from 1971-72 (The Apocalypse Players/Systematic Destruction) performed our last NewYork City performance across the street from Dover Street at the Moravian Church just a few weeks before I moved to New York City! And it’s just a few blocks away from where Will Eisner’s office was located when I worked as his apprentice (at 30th Street and Park Avenue South). And the High Times magazine offices were located around 28th Street and Lexington back in the day. So this is now another nice memory of mine from that neighborhood. It’s not known as a tourist destination yet, but it’s an interesting neighborhood. Very underrated.
The PUNK boxing gloves are fun! You have to try them on, they are a whole lotta fun! You’ll wanna punch someone in the face after u wear them, so use your judgement.
OK, so this is where I usually plug a book, like Sean Howe’s Tom Forcade biography, or the “Best of PUNK Magazine” book that Bridget Hurd and I worked on years ago. Well, sorry to say this, but the “Best of PUNK” book is now out of print! Now people are selling the book for ridiculous prices at online bookstores. Like everything I do, it seems that no one buys it when it first comes out, then years later it sells for a ridiculous amount of money. So here we go again. I would enjoy my life much more if people supported my work when it first hits the market. But it seems that only super-aware people appreciate my work, so…
The bottom line: You might want to buy some of the overpriced PUNK Magazine /Overthrow/Everlast clothing ASAP. After 48 years? I can say with some confidence that it won’t be forgotten. I’ll be dead soon and this kind of thing becomes more valuable then. Hey, all of us artists know that this is our fate. Our artwork becomes more valuable after we are dead and buried. We just hope that people buy some of our artwork before then.
Support living artists and you probably won’t regret it later.
Thanks! Illustrator Cliff Mott and I are planning to work on a big history thing about the East Village: So stay tuned!
Great article—love the NYC history!