Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Hilly Kristal of CBGB's

VANISHED


tonight i passed by this spontaneous memorial at the shuttered CBGB's

CBGB's founder Hilly Kristal has passed on to rock heaven. (Read his last interview.) According to AM New York, the East Village is quickly following him to his grave:

"When owner Hilly Kristal opened the club in 1973, his rent was about $600 per month.... By 2004, Kristal was paying $19,000 a month. Last year his landlord...evicted Kristal and raised the rent to $65,000 a month.

'The Bowery is what the Meatpacking District was three years ago,' [the broker] said. 'With the opening of new retail tenants in [nearby] Avalon Bay, the level of luxury is getting very high. Within the next six months to year, the neighborhood will look more like [the West Village.] Within two years you'll see that almost all the retail businesses there will have changed.'"

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