Thunderstruck! Was Johnny in Midtown?

 

UPDATE: Click here for the solution.

 

Remember this photo quiz? Honestly speaking, I'd pretty much chalked it up to unsolvable after it was correctly pointed out that the appearance of subway grates rendered the notion of it actually having been captured around the St. Marks Place vicinity largely unlikely. Hell, it might not even be New York City!

But that Bob Egan ... he's one tenacious cat. Get an idea in his head and he's off and running.

So, while I'd thrown in the towel (not that I really tried all that hard), Bob's evidently been still wrestling with it. He wrote me last night, and here's what he had to say:

I was walking along 14th today and saw similar grating to the Thunders shot and looked to see if any resembled the pictures, but the gratings weren't close enough to the buildings, as the sidewalk is wide. Then I thought of 53rd between 3rd and 2nd where the E+F TRAINS go east, and the sidewalks are thin.

The entrances look a little similar. But if they weren’t, the article from Wikipedia about the Ramones song “53rd and Third” says the buildings on that strip razed west of Third were stripped for Citicorp or something. Maybe there were inexpensive hotels on that strip that Mr. Thunders might have been staying at?

From Wikipedia:

53rd and Third - Ramones

The song, written by bassist Dee Dee Ramone, refers to what was then a well-known spot for male prostitution in New York City , known as "the Loop." [1] The area was a center of gay nightlife decades before the West Village became prominent, and was home to well-known hustler bars, most notably Cowboys, Rounds, and Red, from the 1970s through the 1990s.[2] In the bridge, sung by Dee Dee, he is finally chosen but he kills his customer with a razor blade . The police are now chasing him, but at least he "proved [he's] no sissy".

Shortly after the song was written, the block between 3rd and Lexington avenues was cleared to make way for one of Manhattan 's tallest skyscrapers, the Citigroup Center . Years later, the Lipstick Building was built on the east side of 3rd Avenue at 53rd. However, gay hustlers remained in abundance at bars on 53rd between 3rd and 1st avenues.

I then wrote back to Bob, saying he was truly a master, to which he replied...

But I don’t necessarily think it’s the spot. But it seems to fit. It could also , for example be on Lex on the ppe east side near say 86th street where the eisde walks are thin. 

Im just thinking out loud with all this. 

What do YOU think?