NYC – East Village: Physical Graffiti
Image by wallyg
The Led Zeppelin album Physical Graffiti features a front and back cover design that depicts these carved face buildings at 98 & 96 St. Mark’s Place. This is the same building Mick Jagger is in front of in the Rolling Stones music video Waiting on a Friend.
The front cover of Physical Graffiti displays an impossibly centered and full daytime view of the buildings and the back-cover displays the same two buildings at night. The view is impossible because one cannot stand on the opposing north side of the street and capture the full vie depcited on the album cover. The actual building has five visible stories above the basement level, but the album cover shows only four. The image was touched up to account for the square shape of an old 33 LP cover. The original album included die-cut windows on the building shown on the cover, but the inner sleeves showed different variations, with objects and people in the window.
98 St. Mark’s Place currently houses the Physical Graffiti thrift boutique store. 96 St. Mark’s Places has Starfish & Jelli, a clothing and accessories shop. Prior to this, it was the home of Anarchist Switchboard, a 1980s punk activist group.
Nice cacth!!!