Gerde's Folk City
130 West 3rd Street | Greenwich Village | built 1875
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The city photographed every building for its tax records around 1940 and again in the 1980s. NYC Municipal Archives.
Written with AI from the source each entry cites, then fact-checked.
- 1874
The city builds a five-story repair shop for the Fire Department at 130 West 3rd Street
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Architect Joseph M. Dunn designed this Romanesque Revival building in 1874-75 for the city's Fire Department, with a cast-iron storefront level under brick upper floors. The city gave it up in 1922, and manufacturing firms filled most of it through the 1940s. Painted signs for the Samuel Epstein & Sons glass company are still partly visible under paint on the second story.
“Originally built as a repair shop for the Fire Department, the building was divested by the city in 1922.”
- 1944
Police raid Tony Pastor's Downtown over lesbian patrons, and the nightspot survives
Tony Pastor's Downtown ran at 130 West 3rd Street from 1939 and drew a mixed crowd of lesbians, tourists, some gay men and female impersonators. In 1944 police raided it on morals charges for letting lesbians linger on the premises. The club stayed open, apparently thanks to protection from the mob, and kept going for more than two decades.
- 1967
The State Liquor Authority revokes Tony Pastor's liquor license
In 1967 the State Liquor Authority pulled the license of Tony Pastor's Downtown, ending its run at 130 West 3rd Street after about 28 years. The agency said the place had become disorderly because it let gay patrons on the premises, in homophobic language the district report quotes. The New York Times reported the revocation on March 18, 1967.
- 1970
The Gay Liberation Front opens a community center upstairs, and 200 march to it on Christmas Eve
From December 1970 into 1971, the Gay Liberation Front and Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries ran a Gay Community Center on the second floor at 130 West 3rd Street. On Christmas Eve about 200 people gathered in Christopher Park and marched behind a banner to the new space. The center also housed Radicalesbians and Gay Youth, for members under 21, and closed in 1971 after a theft of funds.
Source: NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project
- 1970
Gerde's Folk City moves six blocks west into 130 West 3rd Street
Mike Porco had opened Gerdes in 1960 at 11 West 4th Street as a restaurant that eventually began presenting music. In 1970 the club moved to 130 West 3rd Street, the old fire-repair shop. Folk City kept going there for 17 more years, until it lost its lease and closed in 1987.
“…before moving six blocks west in 1970, to 130 West 3rd Street. The club closed in 1987.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1975
Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue plays its first real concert at Folk City
On October 23, 1975, a party at Folk City for Mike Porco's 61st birthday doubled as a dress rehearsal for Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. According to Wikipedia, the troupe played its first real concert there. Dylan had made his first professional appearance at Gerdes on April 11, 1961, when it was still at 11 West 4th Street.
“On October 23, 1975, at a celebration for Mike Porco's 61st birthday, Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue staged a dress rehearsal and played its first real concert.”
Source: Wikipedia
- 1980
New owners buy Folk City and book alternative rock beside the singer-songwriters
Robbie Woliver, Marilyn Lash and Joseph Hillesum began booking Folk City in 1978 and bought it from Mike Porco in 1980. They widened the club's range to alternative rock, with Sonic Youth, Yo La Tengo and 10,000 Maniacs on the bills. Singer-songwriters such as Suzanne Vega and Shawn Colvin found a stage there, and comedians including Adam Sandler and Chris Rock got early work in the room.
Source: Wikipedia
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