SoHo exhibit looks back golden era of rock and roll

SOHO (WABC) -- So much of New York's history is hiding in plain sight, and for the storied rock and roll scene of 1970s Manhattan, a piece of that history is getting a fresh look.

A new exhibit at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in SoHo takes you back in time before rock music became big business, and the focus of the new show is obvious from its title: "The Rock Palaces of New York City."

They were palaces fit for the rock royalty who played there, with kings like Eric Clapton and Joe Cocker, queens like Janis Joplin and Tina Turner and bands like The Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers ruling at the Fillmore East almost half a century ago.

"This was that very special time before the phenomenon of rock music that it's become today," filmmaker and photographer Amalie Rothschild said. "Rock music became the megabucks, cut-throat industry it's become today."

A plaque marks the spot on the Lower East Side where a bank stands now, at the site where so much music history was made. All that remain inside are a few scraps of memorabilia and Rothschild's photos."

"This is the Fillmore East," she said. "This is the marquee which was torn down after the theater closed."

Rothschild was a graduate student next door at NYU when she got a pass to go inside and join the ranks of other young people taking pictures.

"It was loud enough to make you deaf from 100 feet away," photographer Bill Green said.

Green, from Queens, was just 14 years old when he snuck into The Academy of Music, which is now like the Fillmore East, long gone. But the pictures he took while still in high school live on.

"It was the most exciting thing I'd ever experienced, because the energy of those early concerts was visceral," he said.

Both photographers went back to one of the city's few remaining palaces, the Hammerstein Ballroom.

"I think the theater scene began to die out as the bands and promoters realized they could make a lot more money at bigger venues," Green said.

Their images became a requiem for a golden era of rock and roll.

"We were young," Rothschild said. "Our generation really believed we could change the world, and music was the quintessential expression of that."

Rothschild became a documentary filmmaker, while Green is president of his wife's famous Margaret O'Leary chain of boutiques.

Their photos are on display at the gallery exhibit, which runs through June 3.

For more, visit MorrisonHotelGallery.com.