joseph o. holmes
In September 2006, I spent a week photographing the interior of CBGB, the legendary NYC punk and rock club. The experience nothing like what I expected when I contacted Hilly Kristal, the owner, for permission to shoot.
Each day I'd arrive before noon and assemble my camera and tripod, and then spend five to six hours photographing the club, completely alone in the dead silence. Because the floor was soft, even rotten in places, and some of my exposures were as long as two minutes, I spent much of the time sitting motionless in the near-dark waiting for the shutter to close.
My only other visits to the club had been for deafeningly loud, raucous, and crowded shows, so I was surprised to find that I entered the club each morning looking forward to the quiet and solitude. After five visits I took a break, intending to go back for some final images. But six weeks later the club closed its doors forever and the interior was dismantled. Almost a year after that, in August 2007, Hilly Kristal succumbed to lung cancer and died, the space still empty and unrented.
