:35:02
formerly the MacDougal Street Bar,
I think this was '58 or '59...
:35:07
then called The Gaslight.
:35:10
And it was the first poetry reading
in one of these sort of coffee shop/bars...
:35:14
sort of a folk club/coffee shop/bar.
:35:18
And it was so astonishing
that there was a story on Page 3...
:35:22
a whole page in the Daily News:
"Poets Reading in the Coffee Shop".
:35:26
"America, when will you be angelic?
:35:28
"When will you take off your clothes?
:35:30
"When will you look at yourself
through the grave?
:35:32
"When will you be worthy
of your million Trotskyites?
:35:35
"America, why are your libraries
full of tears?
:35:38
"America, when will you send
your eggs to India?
:35:40
"I'm sick of your insane demands.
:35:42
"When can I go into the supermarket
and buy what I need with my good looks?"
:35:46
Down the block here was the San Remo.
:35:48
And every Saturday night
you'd have the riots...
:35:50
between the Stalinists and the Trotskyites.
:35:52
Glasses flying, that sort of thing.
:35:57
There's an old bitch upstairs
who keeps pounding the floor...
:36:01
and she's threatening to call the police
all the time.
:36:03
We used to be out at the bar here
with James Baldwin, the writer.
:36:08
And he used to puff smoke:
:36:10
"This goddamn Irish music!"
:36:26
And the whole place would erupt:
:36:42
In Washington Square, early days,
it was just a place...
:36:45
for people to hang out on Sundays
and talk and play music...
:36:48
and kind of jockey around
and express themselves.
:36:51
It was a place where you could put it
together so someone could hear a little bit.
:36:55
There weren't many concerts in those days.