![\"Bob](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/unnamed-9-768x1152.jpg\")
<\/p>\nEver wonder what it would be like to retrace the footsteps of Bob Dylan during his time in New York? To travel to the venues where he performed, wrote classic tunes, and crashed during his early years in the Big Apple? Now you can with\u00a0Bob Dylan\u2019s New York: A Historic Guide\u00a0(Excelsior Editions\/SUNY Press).<\/p>\n
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While there have been many great books about the cultural history of Greenwich Village, none has focused so sharply on the role it played in the life of rock and folk\u2019s most esteemed songwriter.\u00a0 Now Dick Weissman, a onetime musician turned college professor who traveled in Dylan\u2019s circles early in his career, has written a compact guidebook that brings the songwriter\u2019s days and nights in New York, especially in his early years, to life.\u00a0 And while his book contains some welcome detours, like a discussion of Dylan\u2019s time in Woodstock, the heart of the sites and stories lies in Greenwich Village, that perennial capital of Bohemian art and progressive lifestyles.<\/p>\n
As for me, I was especially interested in Weissman\u2019s book for three reasons.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Firstly, I came of age during my late high school and college years in the late \u201870s, working at a famous Greenwich Village landmark, Bigelow Pharmacy. Located in the heart of the West Village on Sixth Avenue and Eighth Street, many of the patrons who came in were musicians.\u00a0 In addition to handling stock and working the register, I was occasionally tasked with delivering\u00a0medicine\u00a0to musicians like Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones, who were recording around the corner at Electric Lady Studios.\u00a0 The second reason I was interested in the book is my own experience, creating and running in the early \u201890s with legendary rock manager\/publicist\/journalist Danny Fields, the first-ever\u00a0Rock-N-Roll Bus Tour of New York<\/a>. (Click the link to check out a story about it in\u00a0The New York Times.).\u00a0Finally, as a present-day resident of Woodstock, I live a stone\u2019s throw from Dylan\u2019s and the Band\u2019s legendary Big Pink and many of the other landmarks Weissman covers in his chapter on Dylan\u2019s time in Woodstock. (Click for our feature about it)<\/a><\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s tour naturally begins on MacDougal Street, profiling 15 essential landmarks.\u00a0 At #105, there\u2019s the former site of The Commons Coffeehouse, where Dylan, along with Tiny Tim and a pre-Sopranos\u2019\u00a0Uncle Junior (actor\/singer Dominic Chianese), played for \u201cbasket money.\u201d\u00a0 And according to singer David Blue, it\u2019s the site where Dylan began writing \u201cBlowin\u2019 in the Wind\u201d in April 1962. At #110 is the former site of The Folklore Center, a gathering spot where Dylan\u2019s earliest champion, Izzy Young, held court and collected mail that touring folkies could pick up while swinging through town.\u00a0 Another key gathering spot, The Kettle Fish, was at #114, right next to the all-important Gaslight Caf\u00e9.\u00a0 Opened by John Mitchell in 1958, this basement club presented Beat poets like Kerouac, comedians like Bill Cosby, and a multitude of early performances by Joni Mitchell, Richie Havens, and, of course, Dylan.\u00a0 It\u2019s where the finger snap was created to reward outstanding performances without bothering the upstairs neighbors of this basement hovel with handclaps.\u00a0 The club was recreated for both the TV series\u00a0The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel\u00a0and the Coen Brothers\u2019 extraordinary film\u00a0Inside Llewyn Davis. From 1986 to 1995, it was The Scrap Bar, a heavy rock club which this writer had the pleasure of playing.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s MacDougal sojourn also includes The Caf\u00e9 Wha? and Caff\u00e9 Reggio.\u00a0 The former, opened by David Lee Roth\u2019s uncle Manny Roth, was the first place Dylan performed the night he arrived in New York on January 24, 1961. It is also the venue where Jimi Hendrix would be \u201cdiscovered\u201d by Chas Chandler.\u00a0 At #119, Caff\u00e9 Reggio reportedly features the first espresso machine in America, purchased in 1927 by owner Domenico Parisi. This classic caf\u00e9 continues to fuel the dreams and energy of many of NYC\u2019s creatives and tourists and has been featured in a multitude of films, like The Godfather.\u00a0 At #94 is the townhouse where Dylan lived in 1970, after being hassled by fans during his time in Woodstock.\u00a0 With obsessive fans like the legendary A.J. Weberman picking through his trash, Bob split the townhouse for Southern California in 1973.<\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s chapter on Bleeker Street features a bevy of important Dylan landmarks, especially some of the most important clubs of the era. At #147, there is the still-going strong Bitter End, and at #152, the former site of the Caf\u00e9 Au Go Go, where Lenny Bruce was arrested for obscenity.\u00a0 At #157, it details the former site of Kenny\u2019s Castaways. From 1976 to 2012, this club featured a wide range of folks that Dylan would come to check out, from one of the first performances by Bruce Springsteen to the debut of Yoko Ono\u2019s band to local bands.\u00a0 At #158 was the Village Gate, which hosted jazz greats like Miles, Monk, and John Coltrane.\u00a0 Weissman relates a funny story of Trane launching into a lengthy version of \u201cMy Favorite Things,\u201d oblivious to the manager flashing the lights to signal that it\u2019s closing time.\u00a0 We also hear about the famous Matt Umanov Guitar Shop, where Dylan bought and repaired instruments, and Zito\u2019s Bakery, where he and his then-girlfriend, Suzy Rotolo, would get fresh bread out of the oven in the early morning hours after gigs.<\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s journey continues North and West to the famed fountain at Washington Square Park, where Dylan and contemporaries like John Sebastian, Maria Muldaur, Artie and Happy Traum would play on Sunday afternoons.\u00a0 At #106, West Third Street, he takes us to the former site of the Caf\u00e9 Bizarre, which, according to folk great Dave Van Ronk, was the first coffeehouse to feature folksingers (it was also the place where Andy Warhol\u2019s crew first encountered the Velvet Underground).\u00a0 The author also provides some fun anecdotes about the legendary The Bottom Line and the night in 1975 when Dylan was invited to jam on harp on stage with blues great Muddy Waters, who introduced him as \u201cJohn Dylan.\u201d<\/p>\n We get a cold lesson on inflation with a visit to Dylan\u2019s first apartment at 161 West 4th\u00a0Street, a one-bedroom that Dylan and Rotolo rented for $60 a month in December 1961, which today rents for $4,700 per month.\u00a0 A Dylan tour would not be complete without a discussion of the place where he made his critical bones, Gerde\u2019s Folk City.\u00a0 On April 11, 1961, Dylan was opening for the Greenbriar Boys but gave a performance that generated a rave review in the New York Times by Robert Shelton, one that inspired Columbia Records to come calling.\u00a0<\/p>\n Weissman\u2019s tour takes us to many more places that shaped not only Dylan\u2019s life but the culture as a whole, from recording studios and the offices of managers and music publishers to hangouts like the Cedar Tavern and The White Horse Tavern to residences like the Chelsea Hotel and The Albert Hotel, where the Lovin\u2019 Spoonful wrote and rehearsed \u201cDo You Believe in Magic?\u201d and John and Michele Phillips wrote the Mamas & the Papas \u201cCalifornia Dreamin\u2019.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n In his Woodstock chapter, Weissman discusses the homes Dylan lived in, where he had his famous motorcycle crash, and the former site of Caf\u00e9 Espresso.\u00a0 Called \u201cthe Caf\u00e9 Depresso\u201d by the musicians who frequented it, Dylan lived rent-free on the second floor above the caf\u00e9. It\u2019s the site where he wrote tunes like \u201cIt\u2019s Ain\u2019t Me Babe,\u201d \u201cSubterranean Homesick Blues,\u201d and \u201cMr. Tambourine Man.\u201d<\/p>\n In his final chapter, Weissman reveals the addresses of 50 critical cultural figures who, like Dylan, called Greenwich Village their home for a time \u2013 from writers like Henry Miller, Edgar Allan Poe, and Mark Twain to fine artists like Jackson Pollack and Mark Rothko to musicians like Hendrix, Joplin, Lou Reed, Buddy Holly, Barbra Streisand, and many more.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever wonder what it would be like to retrace the footsteps of Bob Dylan during his time in…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":220227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5122],"tags":[5229,24796,23152,405,403,5226,5225,5228,5227,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-220226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-bob-dylan","10":"tag-greenwich-village","11":"tag-new-york","12":"tag-new-york-city","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkcity","15":"tag-ny","16":"tag-nyc","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115190016728990925","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=220226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/220226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=220226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=220226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=220226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Bob](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/unnamed-10-768x1024.jpg\")
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