CBGB
music venue in New York City, USA (1973-2006)
CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal and his ex-wife Karen Kristal at 315 Bowery in the East Village in Manhattan, New York City. The club was previously a biker bar and before that it was a dive bar. The letters CBGB were for Country, Bluegrass, Blues, Kristal's original vision for the club, but CBGB soon emerged as a famed and iconic venue for punk rock and new wave bands, including Poly Styrene and the X-Ray Spex, Ramones, Dead Boys, Television, Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Patti Smith Group, Blondie, and Talking Heads. The club has been identified in academic scholarship as a linchpin of early American punk culture. Histories of punk have positioned CBGB as the venue at which the genre took root in New York before its transatlantic spread to the United Kingdom.
Other bands affiliated with CBGB included Agnostic Front, Murphy's Law, U.S. Chaos, Cro-Mags, Warzone, Gorilla Biscuits, Sick of It All, and Youth of Today.
One storefront beside CBGB became the "CBGB Record Canteen", a record shop and café. In the late 1980s, "CBGB Record Canteen" was converted into an art gallery and second performance space, "CB's 313 Gallery". CB's Gallery was played by music artists of milder sounds, such as acoustic rock, folk, jazz, or experimental music, such as Dadadah, Kristeen Young, Medeski Martin & Wood and Toshi Reagon, while CBGB continued to showcase mainly hardcore punk, post punk, metal, and alternative rock.
313 Gallery was also the host location for Alchemy, a weekly Goth night showcasing goth, industrial, dark rock, and darkwave bands.
The public source identifies “CBGB” as music venue in New York City, USA (1973-2006). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around CBGB, music and venue.
Why this record matters
A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “CBGB”, the useful work is to connect “music venue in New York City, USA (1973-2006)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 6, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1022965. Authority coordinates are 40.725, -73.992. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “CBGB”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow CBGB primary sources, CBGB archive and CBGB research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “CBGB” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.