Probably Don’t Eat the Hot Dogs
They’re tearing down City Gardens today.1 City Gardens was a punk rock mecca located in a sparse industrial park in Trenton, New Jersey. The venue opened in 1979 and proceeded to host punk and punk-adjacent household names from the 1980s2 for the next 20 years and then some. Jon Stewart was a bartender there, if that matters to you. They made a movie about it, even.3 City Gardens closed in 2001 and the building remained vacant ever since. I suppose it makes sense that it should be knocked down sooner rather than waiting too much longer. It was already on the verge of collapse by the mid-eighties.
Some would have you believe the punk scene of yore was some kind of love fest in which everyone was accepted and appreciated for being their unique and authentic selves. It was not. The scene was wildly antisocial, violent, and self-destructive. We were, however, extremely creative. At some point the vibe became too much to be sustainable—or not enough, depending on your worldview. Whatever all that was back then is gone now. There’s still punk music, but punk rock was never really about the music. The music was about punk rock. There’s probably a scene like that now, only it sounds different and isn’t about punk rock, so it’s nothing like what punk was. It’s some newer thing of its own.
Footnotes
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In the past, I would have posted links to a few news articles about the demolition of such a landmark, but I’d only have to come back a year or two from now to clean up the broken links left behind when a site gets redesigned, goes behind a paywall, or closes for good. I’m not doing that anymore. Take my word for it. The news said this is happening today. ↩
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Including, but not limited to, 7 Seconds, 10,000 Maniacs, Adrenaline O.D., Agent Orange, Agnostic Front, Alien Sex Fiend, All, Anthrax, Bad Brains, Bad Religion, Bauhaus, Black Flag, Butthole Surfers, Buzzcocks, Circle Jerks, Corrosion of Conformity, The Cramps, D.R.I., Dag Nasty, Dead Kennedys, The Dead Milkmen, Descendents,4 The Dickies, The Exploited (famously so for the whole flipping of the van incident), Faith No More, The Fall, fIREHOSE, Fishbone, Flipper, Front Line Assembly, Fugazi, Gang of Four, GBH, Gorilla Biscuits, Government Issue, The Gun Club, GWAR, Henry Rollins, Iggy Pop, JFA, The Jim Carroll Band, Killing Joke, Love and Rockets, Meat Puppets, The Meatmen, Megadeth, The Mekons, Melvins, Mentors, Ministry, Mojo Nixon, Mudhoney, New Order, Nick Cave, Nirvana, Oingo Boingo, Peter Murphy, Pixies, Poison Idea, Prong, Psychedelic Furs, Quicksand, R.E.M., Ramones (a lot), The Replacements, Samhain, Shriekback, Sick of It All, Sinéad O’Connor, The Sisters of Mercy, Skinny Puppy, Slayer, SNFU, Social Distortion, Suicidal Tendencies, T.S.O.L., Token Entry, Toots & the Maytals, UK Subs, The Vandals, Violent Femmes, Voivod, Wall of Voodoo, and Youth of Today. ↩
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If you can find Riot on the Dance Floor streaming somewhere, I recommend checking it out. If you can find it on DVD, I’ll buy it from you. ↩
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I only just now realized the Descendents spelled their name right but wrong. ↩