Marquee Memories: Redux

I've waxed nostalgic about the old Marquee club at 547 West 21st street a couple of times here. It wasn't even there that long (maybe three years? maybe?), but it was somewhat of a crucial venue for me at the time.

Located way the hell over on the very western edge of Chelsea, it had virtually no neighbors during its tenure apart from a gay bondage club across the street called Zone DK. This was all the early 90's, you realize --- well prior to the advent Chelsea Piers, Giuliani's quality of life campaign, 9/11, the High Line and Bloomberg's era of hyper-gentrification.

In its incarnation as the Marquee, I was lucky enough to catch several live shows at 547 West 21st street. I'm sure I've listed them here before, but if memory serves, bands I saw play at the Marquee included Too Much Joy, Pylon, The Wonder Stuff, the La's, My Dad is Dead, The Wedding Present, the Milltown Brothers, the Butthole Surfers, the Rollins Band, the Lunachicks, Primus, 24-7 Spyz, Fatima Mansions, Julian Cope, the Kitchens of Distinction, Lush, Ride, Curve, Chapterhouse, The House of Love, Swervedriver, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Blur, Senseless Things, Pigface, Limbomaniacs, The Sundays, The Charlatans, Mr. Bungle, Birdland and Pop Will East Itself. Actually, the very first time I ever set foot in the place, it was still called Sonic, and I was there to see a little known band (at the time) called Nine Inch Nails.

For whatever reason, the Marquee closed sometime in the almost-mid-90's and morphed into a Latino dance club called El Flamingo --- `cos, ya know, we needed another one of those. For the remainder of the 90's, if I'm not mistaken, El Flamingo played host to a discofied re-imagining of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" called "The Donkey Show." Suffice to say, I never went.

Anyway, I addressed all of this in earlier posts. Back in 2012, I walked back over to that end of West 21st street with my little boy Oliver and snapped a picture of its incarnation as a comparatively whisper-quiet art gallery.

Well, earlier this week, I had a little time on my hands while strolling through Chelsea and once again found myself walking west on 21st street, the sounds of countless 90's bands like those listed above filling my head. As I approached, however, that elusive "sense of place" I've spoken about before was pretty much all gone, ..... as was the building that once housed that art gallery, El Flamingo and before it...The Marquee.

Already looming high above West 21st Street is a brand new development where 547 (and the building to its west) used to stand. It certainly doesn't look that impressive now, but 551 West 21 bills itself as "sharp and crisp and as subtle, luminous and dramatic as a perfectly cut diamond" and "like a villa in the sky."

Where once this street was defined by its quiet desolation, it will now be (yet another) buzzing hive of affluents. Who can afford to live in these places?

Anyway, I doubt I'll find myself taking any more nostalgic walks down West 21st street ever again. As such, here's another taste of the past. I was actually at this show. Here's the Lunachicks at the Marquee in November of 1990....

Comments

[Greg]

I used to go see the Lunachicks a lot. They were SO good live. I saw them at the Marquee in '90 but I don't think it was the show in the video. They were opening for Gwar, and I think it was earlier in the year than that.

[Randee Dawn]

I think I was actually at that La's show -- I saw them on that tour in Boston and then again not long after in NYC but I can't recall the venue. Great band, sadly, did not wash much.

[Mark Satlof]

Thanks for this, one of my favorite clubs and not talked about too much either. Saw tons of great shows there.

[JAM]

i saw L7 at the marquee, cold winter weeknight and it was me and about 30 other people.

also, didn't zonedk become a music club that hosted metal bands?

[Daniel Lugo]

I saw many shows at the marquee. One of them being Blur's first US show during the New music seminar. or was it CMJ?

there werent may bars near there so we once went to Zone DK for a beer before a show. it was also a strip club (topless only) but you can hear someone getting wiped beyond the make-shift walls. I miss NY in the 80s and 90s