The Downtown Pop Underground

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Al Carmines served as the associate minister for the arts at Judson Memorial Church, where he wrote songs for plays that Judson produced in addition to giving sermons and other ministerial duties. [more]

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Father of Bibbe Hansen, Fluxus artist Al Hansen was an early Happenings innovator who was the first to publish a book about the subject, A Primer of Happenings and Time/Space Art, in 1965. [more]

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Like many artists who became part of 1960s avant-garde art movements, Allan Kaprow developed an expanded approach to painting, composition, poetry, and, eventually, performance—when he coined the term “Happenings.” [more]

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Best known for his Pop Art silkscreened work, Andy Warhol was a key connector figure who circulated not only through uptown art circles, but also within the underground film, poetry, theater, and music scenes. [more]

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Off-Off-Broadway actor Benton Quin contributed props and sets to Blondie’s early live shows after Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Gary Valentine moved into the Bowery building where he lived, which became known as the ”Blondie Loft.” [more]

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Bill Graham grew up in New York as a German Holocaust survivor and an aspiring actor, and after moving to San Francisco he found success as a live music promoter by opening the Fillmore Auditorium to capitalize on the city’s thriving psychedelic music scene before opening the Fillmore East in 1968. [more]

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Legendary speed freak Billy Name, who created the original Factory’s metallic installation art design, learned lighting design under Nick Cernovich, who was part of the Black Mountain College group that also included John Cage. [more]

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Carolee Schneemann is well-known for many significant pieces, including her 1964 performance piece Meat Joy, which featured nude performers who played with paint, sausage, and raw chickens, and was presented at Judson Gallery. [more]

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Dancer Daniel Nagrin appeared in Shirley Clarke’s first short film, 1953’s Dance in the Sun, and he later could be found performing in the Kitchen at the Mercer Arts Center. [more]

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DIY theater impresario Ellen Stewart cultivated an extended family of theater folks after she founded La MaMa in the basement of an East Ninth Street building, which then moved to various East Village location before settling in its permanent home on East Fourth Street. [more]

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A Lithuanian immigrant named George Maciunas was the informal leader of Fluxus, an irreverent 1960s art movement that also included Yoko Ono and Al Hansen. [more]

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Poet Gerard Malanga became part of the Factory scene after being hired as Andy Warhol’s screen-printing assistant; he could also be seen wielding a whip while dancing to the Velvet Underground in the Exploding Plastic Inevitable multimedia series, and costarring with Mary Woronov in Vinyl at Caffe Cino. [more]

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Harry Smith is perhaps best known for compiling 1952’s Anthology of American Folk Music, though he was also a notable underground filmmaker, occultist, and world-class eccentric. [more]

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Jack Smith’s underground film Flaming Creatures (1963) was hugely influential, erupting with sexually ambiguous images of gay and trans performers and shot DIY-style on shoplifted black-and-white film stock that was often overexposed to create a hazy white sheen. [more]

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Experimental composer and theorist John Cage shared a studio at the Living Theatre with dancer and choreographer Merce Cunningham, with whom he collaborated for performances at Judson Memorial Church and elsewhere. [more]

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Born in South Wales, John Cale moved to New York as a young man and participated in an eighteen-hour performance organized by John Cage soon after arriving, then played with La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music ensemble and cofounded the Velvet Underground. [more]

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John Vaccaro was the mercurial director who orchestrated the Play-House of the Ridiculous, whose shows were unrelenting explosions of color, glitter, and noise underscored by social satire. [more]

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Underground filmmaker and Village Voice critic Jonas Mekas was a Lithuanian immigrant who came to America after World War II and eventually formed the New American Cinema Group in 1960 with his friend Shirley Clarke and other likeminded filmmakers. [more]

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Lighting designer Joshua White studied lighting at film and theater school and worked at discothèques like Trude Heller’s before his tenure at the Fillmore East, where he masterminded the Joshua Light Show. [more]

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Minimalist composer La Monte Young moved to the city in 1960 and became involved in Yoko Ono’s Chambers Street Loft Series and the Fluxus art movement; his Theatre of Eternal Music ensemble included John Cale, Tony Conrad, Billy Name, and many others. [more]

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Long before forming the Velvet Underground and entering the Factory fold, Lou Reed began playing rock ’n’ roll in high school in the late 1950s and got his first post-college job as a songwriter for Pickwick Records, which he quit to form the Velvet Underground. [more]

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After Tony Conrad left the Velvet Underground, its classic lineup was rounded out by drummer Maureen “Moe” Tucker; Reed was a friend of Maureen’s brother, Jim Tucker, and they cofounded a mimeo poetry zine, Lonely Woman Quarterly, while the two attended Syracuse University. [more]

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Guitarist Sterling Morrison met Lou Reed at Syracuse University and later reconnected with the songwriter in New York City, where he joined the fledgling Velvet Underground. [more]

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Tom O’Horgan was a multitalented director, musician, and choreographer who worked on dozens of shows at La MaMa before hitting the bigtime as the director of the Broadway musicals Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar, though he continued to return to La MaMa after his mainstream success. [more]

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Jack Smith’s friend Tony Conrad helped create the soundtrack for Flaming Creatures and performed in La Monte Young’s group the Theatre of Eternal Music with Billy Name and John Cale before performing in an early version of the Velvet Underground. [more]

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Before she lived at 87 Christopher Street, multimedia artist Yoko Ono organized downtown Manhattan’s first loft events, the Chambers Street Loft Series, in what is now called TriBeCa (the triangle below Canal Street). [more]