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Press a print to pull it again. From a Verve publicity photograph of the band, about 1966. Photographer unknown; Verve Records · Public domain

Ludlow St · St. Marks Pl · Union Sq · W 54th St · 1965–1970

The Velvet
Underground

A flat on Ludlow Street, a coffeehouse that fired them, a loft covered in foil, a dance hall full of film, and a battered studio with a famous nightclub underneath. Peel each one back, then go and stand there.

Peel slowly ↓
Sources

John Cale · viola · 1965

Hold the note.

In the studio Cale played a viola strung with guitar and mandolin strings, holding single notes into a drone. Cale had come from South Wales with a degree in classical music, and in New York he joined La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music. Hold the note, and the early places come in one at a time.

Sources
  1. 1Bird Library, Syracuse University
  2. 256 Ludlow Street
  3. 3Café Bizarre

Silence. Hold the note.

A broad modern brick library building behind trees on a bright autumn day
Bird Library, Syracuse University, October 2023. Kiran891 · CC BY-SA 4.0

Early 1960s · 222 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, New York

Bird Library, Syracuse University

Lou Reed graduated from Syracuse University with honours in English. There he met the poet Delmore Schwartz, who shaped how Reed saw himself as an artist.

Special Collections in Bird Library holds a 1960s student magazine, The Lonely Woman, with a story bylined “Luis Reed”. Reed started that mimeographed poetry magazine with Moe Tucker’s brother Jim. Sterling Morrison was another college friend.

A working university library. Ask Special Collections before you go.

Sources
John Cale in black and white, long dark hair and a thin goatee, looking at the camera
John Cale, cropped from the Verve publicity photograph of the band, about 1966. Photographer unknown; Verve Records · Public domain

1965 · Ludlow Street, Lower East Side

56 Ludlow Street

Tony Conrad opened his flat at 56 Ludlow Street to John Cale, a fellow player in La Monte Young’s Theatre of Eternal Music. Lou Reed later moved in too.

Several early Velvet Underground demos were recorded in the flat. The band took its name from a lurid paperback that Tony Conrad came across. By day Reed wrote knock-off pop songs for Pickwick Records. In early 1965 Cale and Conrad were roped into a promotional band for one of them, the Primitives.

A private home. This page names the street and leaves it off the map.

Sources
Andy Warhol in dark glasses and a leather jacket, Brillo boxes stacked behind him
Andy Warhol at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, before his retrospective opened, February 1968. Lasse Olsson / Pressens Bild · Public domain

Late 1965 · 106 West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village

Café Bizarre

In late 1965 the band began playing at Café Bizarre, a tourist coffeehouse with fake cobwebs and candles. The owner told them to stop playing one song. They opened the next set with it and were fired.

Gerard Malanga, Ed Sanders and the film-maker Barbara Rubin had already seen the band, and Warhol signed them to a management deal. Warhol later wrote that they met the band at the end of 1965.

See number 106 from the pavement on West 3rd Street.

Sources

231 East 47th Street · 1964

Hang the foil.

From 1964 to 1967 Warhol’s Silver Factory filled the fourth floor of an 1887 cold-storage warehouse at 231 East 47th Street. Unroll the foil across the wall, then rub it.

Bare walls on the fourth floor.

  1. 1Under the next sheet.
  2. 2Under the next sheet.
  3. 3Under the next sheet.
  4. 4Under the next sheet.

The building is gone. Walk East 47th Street at Second Avenue.

Sources
A tall, ornate pale stone building seen from below, with DECKER BUILDING carved over the entrance
The Decker Building, 33 Union Square West, 2008. Dmadeo · CC BY-SA 4.0

1967–1968 · Decker Building, 33 Union Square West

The second Factory

In 1967 Warhol moved the Factory to 33 Union Square West, across the park from Max’s Kansas City.

A year later Valerie Solanas shot Warhol in its offices, and the Factory’s open door closed.

See the Decker Building from Union Square West.

Sources
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23 St. Marks Place · April 1966

Throw the light.

The Dom was a former Polish wedding and social hall on St. Marks Place that became a bar for the bohemian crowd. In April 1966 the Velvet Underground began a residency here with Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

A sunny East Village street of brick walk-ups with shopfronts and fire escapes
St. Marks Place in the East Village, June 2021. Eden, Janine and Jim · CC BY 2.0

Projection booth

The booth is dark.

  • Film on the bandSwitch it on.
  • Coloured gelsSwitch it on.
  • DancersSwitch it on.
  • The balconySwitch it on.
Sources
A newspaper page collaging photographs of dancers, a singer with long hair and an audience under projected light
The Exploding Plastic Inevitable on tour, in KRLA Beat, 28 May 1966. Howard L. Bingham, KRLA Beat · Public domain

It was also at the Dom that Ed Sanders suggested forming the Fugs.

The light show stays on the page; the pulse is slower than three flashes a second and never runs on its own.

Look for number 23 from the pavement on St. Marks Place.

254 West 54th Street · April 1966

Peel slowly.

Warhol designed the sleeve. On the original you could peel back a banana-skin sticker and see the fruit underneath. This one is drawn by hand. Peel it and see what is under the record.

Sealed. Peel slowly.

The Velvet Underground & Nico came out on Verve on 12 March 1967.

  1. An address

    Keep peeling.

  2. Four days in April

    Keep peeling.

  3. The tapes

    Keep peeling.

  4. Underneath

    Peel it all the way.

Sources

Studio 54 is a working Broadway theatre. Buy a ticket for a show to go inside.

The Dom · Boston · San Francisco · Max’s

The fifth chair.

Four nights, and each one had somebody else in the room who made it what it was. Pick a night, then fill the empty chair.

Who sat in the fifth chair?

The Dom, About 1967. The fifth chair is empty.

A sunny East Village street of brick walk-ups with shopfronts and fire escapes
St. Marks Place in the East Village, June 2021. Eden, Janine and Jim · CC BY 2.0

April 1966 · 23 St Marks Place, East Village

The Dom

In April 1966 the Velvet Underground began a residency here with Andy Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable.

From the balcony Warhol spotted a dancer, Eric Emerson, went down to meet him and cast him in his films.

Look for number 23 from the pavement on St. Marks Place.

Sources

Pittsburgh · Lincoln Center · Grunewald

Where it is kept.

A tall brick and terracotta warehouse building with a large vertical WARHOL banner
The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh, 2015. Cbaile19 · CC0

117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh

The Andy Warhol Museum

The Warhol holds the Scepter master tapes, found while staff were processing Warhol’s archive.

They went on show with more than thirty of Warhol’s Screen Tests from 12 May to 25 September 2023. The museum is on the North Shore, across the Andy Warhol Bridge from downtown Pittsburgh. Admission covers every exhibition, the daily film screenings and the gallery talks. The free daily talk starts at 11.15am.

A public museum. It was open 10am to 5pm on the day we checked; see its site for the week.

Sources
The Andy Warhol Museum

Gallery talks at The Warhol

117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh

A free gallery talk every day at 11.15am, and at 2.15pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, included with admission to the museum that keeps the Scepter master tapes.

Plan a visit
A wide glass-fronted library entrance on a Lincoln Center plaza
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center, March 2024. D. Benjamin Miller · CC0

Lincoln Center, Upper West Side

Lou Reed’s archive

The New York Public Library acquired Lou Reed’s archive in 2017. It holds about 3,600 audio and 1,300 video recordings. The earliest thing it documents is his 1958 Freeport High School band, the Shades.

You use it through the Music and Recorded Sound Division, on the third floor of the Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center.

A public research library. Read nypl.org/LouReed for how to use the archive before you go.

Sources
A small dark headstone among ivy and trees in a woodland cemetery
Nico’s grave at Friedhof Grunewald-Forst, Berlin, December 2015. OTFW, Berlin · CC BY-SA 3.0

Havelchaussee 92b, Grunewald, Berlin

Nico

Nico, born Christa Päffgen, is buried in grave 82 at Friedhof Grunewald-Forst, next to her mother.

Many Berliners call it the suicide cemetery, because unknown dead were once buried there under the fir trees.

A small woodland cemetery on Havelchaussee. Visit quietly.

Sources
Hotel Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea

West 23rd Street, New York

At 222 West 23rd Street. The hotel’s own history pictures Warhol filming Chelsea Girls in 1966. Rooms run from the Petite Chelsea up to two-bedroom suites, with El Quijote downstairs.

Check rooms
The Andy Warhol Museum

Daily film screenings at The Warhol

North Shore, Pittsburgh

Admission covers every exhibition, the daily film screenings and the gallery talks. Open 10am to 5pm on the day we checked.

See what’s on

Visit

Where it is now

12 places you can visit. The Ludlow Street flat is a private home, so it is named and left off the map.

Pins mark public places; private homes are named but not pinned.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. See number 106 from the pavement on West 3rd Street.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. Look for number 23 from the pavement on St. Marks Place.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. See the Decker Building from Union Square West.

  • General reference · Public access · Coordinate precision: building · Not an exact scene or camera position; not a visitor route. See the building from Park Avenue South.

  1. Andy Warhol in dark glasses and a leather jacket, Brillo boxes stacked behind him
    Andy Warhol at Moderna Museet, Stockholm, before his retrospective opened, February 1968. Lasse Olsson / Pressens Bild · Public domain

    106 West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village

    Café Bizarre

    In late 1965 the band began playing at Café Bizarre, a tourist coffeehouse with fake cobwebs and candles.

    See number 106 from the pavement on West 3rd Street.

    Sources
  2. A sunny East Village street of brick walk-ups with shopfronts and fire escapes
    St. Marks Place in the East Village, June 2021. Eden, Janine and Jim · CC BY 2.0

    23 St Marks Place, East Village

    The Dom

    The Dom was a former Polish wedding and social hall on St. Marks Place that became a bar for the bohemian crowd.

    Look for number 23 from the pavement on St. Marks Place.

    Sources
  3. A tall, ornate pale stone building seen from below, with DECKER BUILDING carved over the entrance
    The Decker Building, 33 Union Square West, 2008. Dmadeo · CC BY-SA 4.0

    Decker Building, 33 Union Square West

    The Union Square Factory

    In 1967 Warhol moved the Factory to 33 Union Square West, across the park from Max’s Kansas City.

    See the Decker Building from Union Square West.

    Sources
  4. Looking up the dark facade of a corner building with tall windows on Park Avenue South
    213 Park Avenue South, the old Max’s Kansas City building, 2008. Eden, Janine and Jim · CC BY 2.0

    213 Park Avenue South, Union Square

    Max’s Kansas City

    Max’s Kansas City was a restaurant and bar across Union Square from the second Factory, and one of Warhol’s regular haunts.

    See the building from Park Avenue South.

    Sources

Stay

Sleep at the Chelsea.

A Manhattan hotel whose own history pictures Warhol filming Chelsea Girls in 1966.

Hotel Chelsea

Hotel Chelsea

West 23rd Street, New York

At 222 West 23rd Street. The hotel’s own history pictures Warhol filming Chelsea Girls in 1966. Rooms run from the Petite Chelsea up to two-bedroom suites, with El Quijote downstairs.

Check rooms

Go there

Hear the talk, walk the streets.

A free daily gallery talk at The Warhol, and marketplace Warhol and music walks in New York.

The Andy Warhol Museum

Gallery talks at The Warhol

117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh

A free gallery talk every day at 11.15am, and at 2.15pm on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays, included with admission to the museum that keeps the Scepter master tapes.

Plan a visit
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Live marketplace results for Andy Warhol, Factory and downtown music history walks in New York. Check each itinerary for its stops.

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What’s on

Go inside 254 West 54th Street.

A Broadway show in the building where the first album was made, and the films at The Warhol.

The Andy Warhol Museum

Daily film screenings at The Warhol

North Shore, Pittsburgh

Admission covers every exhibition, the daily film screenings and the gallery talks. Open 10am to 5pm on the day we checked.

See what’s on

Take it home

A poster, books and records.

One original 1968 concert poster from our store, four books and three records tied to these places.

Printed Originals · Our poster store

The Velvet Underground: Avalon Ballroom (1968)

An original 1968 concert poster for the band in San Francisco, art by Bellmer Wright. 19.8 × 13.9 in, rolled, mint.

In stock

View poster
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Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story

Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga

Malanga danced at the Dom; this is his and Bockris’s history of the band.

Find the book
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POPism: The Warhol Sixties

Andy Warhol and Pat Hackett

Warhol’s own memoir of the decade, including meeting the band at the end of 1965.

Find the book
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Lou Reed: A Life

Anthony DeCurtis

The biography whose author went looking for Reed’s student writing at Syracuse.

Find the book
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The Velvet Underground & Nico (33⅓)

Joe Harvard

A short book on the making of the first album.

Find the book
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The Velvet Underground & Nico

The Velvet Underground & Nico · LP, Verve V-5008, 1967

Mostly cut at Scepter Studios in April 1966; released on 12 March 1967.

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Loaded

The Velvet Underground · LP, Cotillion SD 9034, 1970

Released in November 1970, after Reed had left the band.

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Live at Max’s Kansas City

The Velvet Underground · LP, Cotillion SD 9500, 1972

Brigid Polk’s tape of Reed’s last night with the band, 23 August 1970.

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Dates, prices, rooms and stock change: confirm with the provider before you travel or buy. A stay or tour is described as a filming location only where the card says so.

The sources

Every place and moment behind this page, with sources.

13 of 13 places · 15 of 15 Moments

  • 56 Ludlow Street

    Ludlow Street, Lower East Side

    • The Ludlow Street flat

      Cale, Conrad and Reed share a flat; the first demos are made there.

  • Café Bizarre

    106 West 3rd Street, Greenwich Village

    • Fired

      Café Bizarre fires the band for playing the song it banned.

    • Warhol signs them

      Warhol takes the band on after his circle sees them.

  • The Dom

    23 St Marks Place, East Village

    • The Exploding Plastic Inevitable

      A residency at the Dom with Warhol’s films, lights and dancers.

  • The Union Square Factory

    Decker Building, 33 Union Square West

    • Union Square

      The Factory moves to Union Square West; Warhol is shot there a year later.

  • Max’s Kansas City

    213 Park Avenue South, Union Square

    • The last night

      Reed’s last show with the band; Brigid Polk tapes it.

  • The Silver Factory

    231 East 47th Street, Midtown

    • The silver loft

      Billy Name covers Warhol’s new loft in silver paint and foil.

  • Scepter Studios, now Studio 54

    254 West 54th Street, Midtown

    • Four days at Scepter

      The first professional recording session, paid for by Norman Dolph.

    • The banana sleeve

      The Velvet Underground & Nico comes out, in Warhol’s peelable sleeve.

    • Studio 54

      Studio 54 opens in the old CBS soundstage under Scepter.

  • Library for the Performing Arts

    Lincoln Center, Upper West Side

    • The Lou Reed archive

      The New York Public Library acquires Reed’s archive.

  • Bird Library, Syracuse University

    222 Waverly Avenue, Syracuse, New York

    • Honours in English

      Lou Reed studies at Syracuse, meets Delmore Schwartz and starts a poetry magazine.

  • The Boston Tea Party

    53 Berkeley Street, Boston

    • Boston, in colour

      The first Tea Party show; Warhol films one 1967 show in colour.

  • The Matrix

    3138 Fillmore Street, San Francisco

    • Two nights on tape

      Peter Abram tapes the band at the Matrix, with Doug Yule in Cale’s place.

  • The Andy Warhol Museum

    117 Sandusky Street, Pittsburgh

    • The tapes on show

      The Warhol shows the Scepter master tapes with the Screen Tests.

  • Friedhof Grunewald-Forst

    Havelchaussee 92b, Grunewald, Berlin

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