The Downtown Pop Underground

Blondie's loft

266 Bowery, New York, NY 10012

40.723460

-73.993250

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Café La MaMa (original location)

321 E 9th St, New York, NY 10003

40.728900

-73.986050

1
Café La MaMa (second location)

82 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

40.726470

-73.988900

2
Café La MaMa (third location)

122 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

40.728070

-73.987600

3
Caffe Cino

31 Cornelia St, New York, NY 10014

40.731410

-74.002560

4
Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square S, New York, NY 10012

40.730220

-73.998440

5
La Monte Young's loft

275 Church St, New York, NY 10013

40.718480

-74.004810

6
Mercer Arts Center

240 Mercer St, New York, NY 10012

40.727900

-73.995490

7
New York Dolls' loft

119 Chrystie St, New York, NY 10002

40.718810

-73.993850

8
Peace Eye Bookstore

383 E 10th St, New York, NY 10009

40.726200

-73.978270

9
Play-House of the Ridiculous

12 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011

40.738120

-73.993240

10
St. Mark's Church-In-The-Bowery

131 E 10th St, New York, NY 10003

40.730350

-73.987080

11
The Factory (Union Square)

33 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003

40.736850

-73.990940

12
The Living Theatre / John Cage and Merce Cunningham's studio

530 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011

40.737440

-73.996440

13

Blondie's loft

266 Bowery, New York, NY 10012

“The Blondie Loft,” as it was known on the scene, was a place for the band to rehearse and their friends to hang out before heading a block away to CBGB (it also served as the residence of Debbie Harry, Chris Stein, and Gary Valentine).

Café La MaMa (original location)

321 E 9th St, New York, NY 10003

Café La MaMa’s first location was in a basement on East Ninth Street, right next door to the Harris family’s longtime residence, and after it moved to Second Avenue, Ellen Stewart kept this space as a rehearsal studio.

Café La MaMa (second location)

82 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

After the first Café La MaMa location was shut down by the city, Ellen Stewart moved it to a loft at 82 Second Avenue, which was quickly vacated after Ellen Stewart was tipped off that the police were going to raid it one night.

Café La MaMa (third location)

122 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

Right after a performance of Paul Foster’s Balls at Café La MaMa’s second location, Ellen Stewart enlisted the audience to move the entire set, seats, and other items to a new location up the street, at 122 Second Avenue—just before the police raided the 82 Second Avenue location.

Caffe Cino

31 Cornelia St, New York, NY 10014

Arguably the first Off-Off-Broadway theater venue, Caffe Cino was located on Cornelia—a quiet one-block-long street that terminates to the north at West Fourth Street that hosted many an experimental theater production and performance.

Judson Memorial Church

55 Washington Square S, New York, NY 10012

Judson Memorial Church, on the south side of Washington Square, mixed radical art, politics, and performance by hosting experimental music composer and theorist John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham, painter Robert Rauschenberg, and so many others.

La Monte Young's loft

275 Church St, New York, NY 10013

La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music ensemble at the composer’s loft deep in the heart of downtown, in a liminal zone between what would become known as SoHo and Tribeca.

Mercer Arts Center

240 Mercer St, New York, NY 10012

Before the Mercer Arts Center collapsed in 1973, it was where underground theater, glam rock, video art, and performance art briefly intersected in the early 1970s—planting the seeds of what would become known as “punk.”

New York Dolls' loft

119 Chrystie St, New York, NY 10002

Early in their career the New York Dolls threw rent parties in their Lower Manhattan loft, before performing at the Mercer Arts Center; members of the band Dance, who often opened for the Dolls, also resided in the building.

Peace Eye Bookstore

383 E 10th St, New York, NY 10009

Peace Eye Bookstore—where proprietor Ed Sanders used to crank out printed matter on his mimeo machine and rehearse with his irreverent underground rock band the Fugs—was located between Avenues B and C, on East Tenth Street.

Play-House of the Ridiculous

12 W 17th St, New York, NY 10011

Between the Play-House of the Ridiculous company’s debut at the Coda Gallery and landing a home at La MaMa, John Vaccaro’s troupe staged shows in this loft on West Seventeenth Street.

St. Mark's Church-In-The-Bowery

131 E 10th St, New York, NY 10003

Like Judson Memorial Church, St. Mark’s Church opened its doors to the artists who populated its surrounding neighborhoods—hosting the Poetry Project and Theatre Genesis, among many other artistic endeavors.

The Factory (Union Square)

33 Union Square W, New York, NY 10003

In 1967, Andy Warhol moved the Factory to 33 Union Square, between East Seventeenth and Eighteenth Streets in Manhattan, across Union Square Park from Max’s Kansas City; one year later, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol in its offices, putting an end to the Factory’s more freewheeling, open-door policy.

The Living Theatre / John Cage and Merce Cunningham's studio

530 6th Ave, New York, NY 10011

The Living Theatre was housed in an old four-story department store building on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Fourteenth Street; John Cage and Merce Cunningham rented a studio on the third floor of the Living Theatre, which accelerated the cross-fertilization of scenes.