“I’m sentimental,” she said as she stood on the Bowery and pointed an antique Polaroid toward the club’s ragged, soiled awning, and a mob of photographers and reporters gathered around her.
Last night was the last concert at CBGB, the famously crumbling rock club that has been in continuous, loud operation since December 1973, serving as the casual headquarters and dank incubator for some of New York’s most revered groups — Ms. Smith’s, the Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads, Television, Sonic Youth — as well as thousands more whose blares left less of a mark on history but whose graffiti and concert fliers might still remain on its walls.
After a protracted real estate battle with its landlord, a nonprofit organization that aids the homeless, CBGB agreed late last year to leave its home at 313 and 315 Bowery at the end of this month. And Ms. Smith’s words outside the club, where her group was playing, encapsulated the feelings shared by fans around the city and around the world: CBGB is both the scrappy symbol of rock’s promise and a temple that no one wanted to see go.
“CBGB is a state of mind,” she said from the stage in a short preshow set for the news media whose highlight was a medley of Ramones songs.
“There’s new kids with new ideas all over the world,” she added. “They’ll make their own places — it doesn’t matter whether it’s here or wherever it is.”
Crowds had been lined up outside since early yesterday morning for a chance to see Ms. Smith and bid farewell to the club, in an event that was carefully orchestrated to maximize media coverage. Television news vans were parked on the Bowery as fans with pink hair, leather jackets and — the most popular fashion statement of the night — multicolored CBGB T-shirts (but not necessarily tickets) waited to be let in and Ms. Smith’s band played a short set for the assembled press.
Curiosity about the club’s last night was mingled with harsh feelings about its fate.
“It’s the cultural rape of New York City that this place is being pushed out,” said John Nikolai, a black-clad 36-year-old photographer from Staten Island whose tie read “I quit.”
Added Ms. Smith outside the club, “It’s a symptom of the empty new prosperity of our city.”
Ms. Smith was CBGB’s last booking as well as one of its first. In the 1970’s, she was the oracular poet laureate of the punk scene, and her seven-week residency in 1975 is still regarded by connoisseurs as the club’s finest moment. With an open booking policy, its founder, Hilly Kristal, nurtured New York rock’s greatest generation, and in turn those groups made CBGB one of the few rock clubs known by name around the world.
“When we first started there was no place we could play, so we ended up on the Bowery,” said Tom Erdelyi, better known as Tommy Ramone, the group’s first drummer and only surviving original member. “It ended up a perfect match.”
It has been a long and painful denouement for CBGB. After settling in 2001 with its landlord, the Bowery Residents’ Committee, over more than $300,000 in back rent, Mr. Kristal, a plucky, gray-bearded 75-year-old, landed back in court last year. The committee, which has an annual budget of $32 million and operates 18 shelters and other facilities throughout the city, said the club owed an additional $75,000 in unpaid rent increases.
Celebrities including David Byrne of Talking Heads and Steven Van Zandt of the E Street Band and “The Sopranos” lined up to help mediate, but an agreement was never reached. Last December, three months after the club’s 12-year lease had expired, it agreed, at the prodding of Justice Carol R. Edmead of State Supreme Court in Manhattan, to finally close.
Muzzy Rosenblatt, the executive director of the Bowery Residents’ Committee, has said that a new tenant has been found for the space. Both Mr. Kristal and the committee also say that CBGB’s accounts have been settled and that there are no outstanding debts.
CBGB, the famously crumbling rock club in the East Village, closed for good with a concert featuring Patti Smith, who was one of the first acts to play there in the 1970's.
A crowd gathered outside the club Sunday night.
Ms. Smith during her sound check at CBGB Sunday night.
Debbie Harry, right, and Chris Stein, both original members of the band Blondie, performed an acoustic set Saturday night.
The Ramones at CBGB in 1977, when the club was helping give a start to major rock bands.
Tom Verlaine of Television performed at the club in 1977.
Hilly Kristal, the owner of CBGB, in his office.
A look inside the club, which is located at 313 and 315 Bowery.
The women's room at CBGB.
Almost as famous as some of the bands that played at CBGB was its graffiti-and-flier-covered interior.
Fans and staff listened to Ms. Smith.
A sign showed the prevailing sentiment Sunday night as the club presented its last concert.
