Punksters Fear End Of An Era

Debbie Harry, Public Enemy, Try To Save CBGBs Rock Club

(AP)  CBGB's owner, Hilly Kristal, shows no signs of backing down, and has acts scheduled at the club throughout September.

"We intend to stay," he declared. "This is not a eulogy. There's no reason why we shouldn't come to an understanding."

It was Kristal who started the club in December 1973, creating a space that eventually spawned such acts as the Ramones, Blondie and the Talking Heads. The club eventually gained an international reputation as the birthplace of punk.

Some of the club's supporters at the rally echoed '70s fashion statements, sporting green hair, safety pin earrings and black Ramones T-shirts.

Among them was 45-year-old Rochelle Goldman, who was wearing a "Save CBGB" T-shirt complemented by assorted CBGB's wristbands dangling from both arms. "People say it's a museum, but I'm still going there," she declared. "I'm an old punk."

Rosenblatt's group — an agency that aids the homeless — holds a 45-year lease on the building and houses 250 homeless people above the club. CBGB is its lone commercial tenant. Their rent feud dates back five years, when the committee went to court to collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club.

The current rent is $19,000 a month, although that figure was expected to at least double under any new lease. The club's landlord-tenant woes were reminiscent of the fight over The Bottom Line, the vintage Greenwich Village club that closed in December 2003.