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Strap On Your Ear Goggles And Remember Adam Yauch With A Beastie Boys Walking Tour
By
Jen Carlson
Published May 4, 2012
Modified May 4, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published May 4, 2012
Modified May 4, 2012
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If you want to stroll around the five boroughs drinking some Brass Monkey, mourning and celebrating the loss and the life of Adam Yauch while listening to Paul's Boutique, here are some suggestions on where to take your own self-guided Beastie Boys tour. We got things going with the following spots, and you can add your own to the map.
- The Beastie Boys met at WNYU (according to the internet), "first appearing on 'New York Thrash,' curated by DJ Tim Sommer."
- Their first show was at original guitarist John Berry's loft at 100th Street and Broadway on Yauch's 17th birthday, August 5th, 1981.
- 59 Chrystie Street—according to Bowery Boogie: "the Chinatown abode would function as home, recording studio, and party palace during the formative years when the transition from punk to hip-hop was forged."
- The album cover for Paul's Boutique (their second studio album released on July 25th, 1989), was shot on the corner of Rivington and Ludlow. Today, 99 Rivington Street looks different, and serves gourmet wraps (sigh), but at least it's the same building facade.
- Adam Yauch, aka MCA, attended Edward R. Murrow High School in Midwood, Brooklyn. He talked about how kids spit on him when he was a student there, in this old Playboy interview .
- The Palladium, which is now an NYU gym and dorm, was mentioned in "Sounds of Science."
- Albee Square Mall (mentioned in “Hey Fuck You") on Flatbush Avenue: "Kings County is my stomping ground / The Albee Square Mall, Brooklyn, Downtown."
- EV Grieve points out that 171 Avenue A, former home of 171A, is the studio where the Beastie Boys recorded "Polly Wog Stew" in 1982.
- Who can forget the 1994 MTV Video Music Awards, where Yauch stormed the stage (dressed as his alter-ego Nathaniel Hörnblowér) when the Beasties' Spike Jonze-directed "Sabotage" lost out to R.E.M.'s "Everybody Hurts." He declared: "This is an outrage! This is a farce!"
- Spike Jonze (who directed their "Sabatoge" video and would go on to work a number of times with the band) photographed them on the Upper East Side prior to all of that, including the above photo outside of the Guggenheim.
- 511 Canal Street is where Oscilloscope Laboratories HQ is located, and where The Mix-Up was recorded.
- Madison Square Garden, home to the Beastie's beloved Knicks and some of their biggest concerts.
- McCarren Park Pool is the only Brooklyn show the band ever played, back in 2007.
Please feel free to add more spots that would be relevant in a Beastie Boys tour of NYC. And once again: R.I.P. MCA.
View Beastie Boys Map in a larger map
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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