Street Corner to Be Named for Joey Ramone
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: November 28, 2003
Filed at 1:34 p.m. ET
NEW YORK (AP) -- Joey Ramone's name will grace a street corner near the East Village club that the trailblazing Ramones helped turn into a punk rock destination.
The corner of Second Street and Bowery near the legendary CBGBs will be christened ``Joey Ramone Place'' for the band's lead singer, who died of cancer in 2001 at 49.
The Ramones, whose four members grew up in Queens, recorded their first album in 1976 and were known for songs including ``I Wanna Be Sedated'' and ``Sheena Is a Punk Rocker.''
The ceremony to name the corner for Ramone, who was born Jeffrey Hyman, was scheduled for Sunday.
― calstars (calstars), Friday, 28 November 2003 19:04 (twenty years ago) link
I'm assuming that the corner of 53rd and 3rd was very different when the song was written from how it is today. While there were some office buildings in the area, the Citicorp Center, across the street, was under construction from 74-77, and apparently led to a major redevelopment of the area. During the early-mid 80s, two large office towers were built on either side of 53d on the East side of Third. They both house major corporate law firms, among other tenants.
― gabbneb (gabbneb), Friday, 28 November 2003 21:33 (twenty years ago) link
Then I took out my razor blade
Then I did what God forbade
Now the cops are after me
But at least I will have very good representation in court
― nate detritus (natedetritus), Friday, 28 November 2003 21:41 (twenty years ago) link
alex: i think it was planned/proposed a while ago, but i don't know if it was ever seen through to completion? i have heard something about this before, though.
boston has mark sandman square, right?
― Ian Johnson (orion), Friday, 28 November 2003 23:09 (twenty years ago) link
ten years pass...
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/blogs/alternate-take/joey-ramones-first-45-and-robert-wyatts-lost-hendrix-session-20131206
David Fricke re Norton records issuing a 16 year-old Joey Ramone produced 45 from 1967 of his brother's band
In 1967, 16-year-old Jeff Hyman of Queens, New York was nearly a decade away from inventing punk rock as Joey Ramone. He was already making records. In the late winter of that year, he made an irresistible offer to a neighborhood psychedelic trio, Purple Majesty: He would take them into a proper studio and produce a single. The band – singer-guitarist Doug Scott, drummer Andy Ritter and Joey's younger brother, bassist Mickey Leigh, all barely 13 but writing their own tunes – jumped at the chance. Joey and Purple Majesty cut two songs, a group original called "In This Day and Age" and a version of the Blues Project's "I Can't Keep From Crying," at Sanders Recording Studios on West 48th Street.
46 years later, that single has finally come out. Lost-wild-rock specialists Norton Records have issued Purple Majesty's Joey-produced debut with lavish, if belated class: on purple vinyl with a picture sleeve. The label has done its best with the subway-tunnel fidelity, dubbing from the only surviving acetate, which Scott found lurking in an old Beach Boys album cover. Musically, beware: Purple Majesty were kids, at a time when School of Rock was a euphemism for geology class. Scott's solo on "In This Day and Age" is impressive, though, by the lopsided-grading standards of obscure garage-nugget collecting. The Blues Project song is evidence of a precocious hipness too; the original had only come out a few months earlier.
Historically, though, this is a sweet addition to Joey's legacy, probably the earliest surviving evidence of his determination to find a life in music. "Joey couldn't see any roadblocks," Scott says in the short liner note. Those would come later, as the Ramones fought their way into history. You can see teenage Joey looking forward in the cover photo: sporting glasses and short hair, sitting at a drum and holding up a xylophone stick like he's counting off a blitzkrieg bop.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/blogs/alternate-take/joey-ramones-first-45-and-robert-wyatts-lost-hendrix-session-20131206#ixzz2mwHqan9b
― curmudgeon, Monday, 9 December 2013 02:07 (ten years ago) link