RECENT MENTION IN THE NEW YORK TIMES 8/21/15
Save the Village (Tuesday) Last year the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea put on an exhibition with the photography of Fred W. McDarrah, who documented the changing scene of Greenwich Village since the 1960s. Now, the spirit of that show has taken the form of this walking tour, which includes stops at the places McDarrah captured on film: locales like Washington Square Park and the Stonewall Inn. At 10 a.m.; the tour meets at Christopher Park, Stonewall Place, at Seventh Avenue, West Village, savethevillagetours.com.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/arts/spare-times-for-aug-21-27.html?_r=0
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PLEASE CONTACT: info@savethevillagetours.com or 917 975 4415 (MEDIA ONLY)
SAVE THE VILLAGE: A WALKING TOUR OF THE PHOTOGRAPHS OF FRED W. McDARRAH
TO KICK OFF AUGUST 4.
Based on the blockbuster show at Chelsea’s Steven Kasher Gallery, these unique walking tours don’t bring people to a gallery, but instead to the downtown locales documented by the longtime Village Voice photographer and picture editor Fred W. McDarrah – and the stomping grounds of the individuals he photographed that helped shape the 1960s ethos, including Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, Jack Kerouac, Jimi Hendrix, Norman Mailer, Allen Ginsberg and many more.
During his 50-year association with the Voice – the world’s most famous alternative newspaper and the house organ of the postwar counterculture – McDarrah amassed a 250,000 image archive that is an encyclopedic catalog of the people, places, movements, trends and events of the New York scene over the second half of the 20th century. So many individuals and groups came to the Save the Village gallery show, and staffers were peppered on a daily basis with so many questions about the photos and the changing face of Greenwich Village and the convulsions of the culture that McDarrah captured… The exhibition ended, but the interest in the Village in the ’60s and McDarrah’s documentation of the changing scene did not wane one bit.
Now, tour-goers will get a multi-postcard set of some of the most iconic of McDarrah’s images and see the exact same places today, including the townhouse on West 11th St. blown up by the Weather Underground, Electric Lady studios, the Stonewall Inn, Christopher Park, Judson Church and Washington Square Park.
Other tours in the series include The Beats, The Artists World and The East Village.
If Greenwich Village is the historic home of the counterculture, then the East Village can be called famous for its off-the-counter culture. On this tour, see where Chicago 8 defendant Jerry Rubin paraded down St. Mark’s Place with a machine gun; the Polish catering hall where the Velvet Underground played its first gigs, the original home of the Fillmore East concert hall, and more.
The Artists World tour is based on a 1961 McDarrah book that is often the sole visual record of a special time and place in the history of American art. The tour visits the East 10th St. Gallery Row where de Kooning had his studio and the nearby neighborhood spots where artists including Franz Kline, Ad Reinhardt, Joan Mitchell, Lee Krasner, and Adolph Gottlieb lived, worked, played, exhibited and famously drank.
The Beats tour will visit the coffee houses, clubs, and other venues (some remaining, some not) where Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Peter Orlovsky, Diane DiPrima, Gregory Corso and William S. Burroughs made literary history.
In addition, all tours are available for private bookings; custom or combination tours can be arranged.
Tickets are $15 (Students, seniors, individuals with a valid library card, or a membership in a Historic
Preservation Society, Group or Association) to $25 (Adult) and every ticket includes a keepsake postcard packet.
For tour schedules, to make reservations and for more information, go to SaveTheVillageTours.com.