Self-described "die-hard rock fan" Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined music legends Billy Joel and Clive Davis today in announcing the development of a new 25,000-square-foot annex to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, located at 76 Mercer Street in Soho.

The new annex, opening in November, will include such priceless artifacts as Johnny Ramone's Mosrite guitar and the graffiti-clad phone booth from defunct legendary rock club CBGB.

"We're in a landmarked area of great cast-iron buildings," Joel Peresman, president and CEO of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, said of the location, which was picked "for a variety of reasons," he added.  read more »

Demonstrators who picketed the new John Varvatos boutique on the Bowery last week plan a second wave of protests tonight, as the fashion designer celebrates the store's grand opening with a splashy charity concert.

The shop is located on the site of the former legendary rock club CBGB, which shuttered in 2006 after a lengthly rent dispute with its landlord.

"We'll have more humorous (and pointed) neon pink signs..." e-mailed activist Rebecca Moore, who last week carried a placard reading "ONE 'SMALL' LOSS OF A MUSIC SPACE, ONE LARGE STEP FOR PANTS."

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John Varvatos may be bringing live music back to the old CBGB location this week. But don’t get too used to it.

“I’m not going to be a club promoter,” said the 54-year-old fashion designer, who is hosting a charity concert on Thursday to celebrate the grand opening of his new eponymous boutique in the former rock-club space.  read more »

DNR is reporting that fashion designer John Varvatos' new boutique in the former CBGB space on the Bowery will feature "a permanent stage, which will be home to a new-artist performance series."

The live music component is part of Mr. Varvatos' self-described effort "to honor what [CBGB] was, instead of seeing it turn into a deli or a bank or whatever."

Mr. Varvatos isn't so nostaglic for the old punk club to restore its famously seedy, smelly, graffiti-strewn restrooms, however.  read more »

The sprawl of 13,000 square feet on the Bowery that was once CBGB's has been leased, in whole or in part, not totally clear, by John Varvatos for a boutique!

Bill Popp, who played CBGB from 1981 until its closing last year, mourned the Bowery's turn for the purse.

"Now it's going to become a contrived type of store, with prices only for the yuppies who are taking over the neighborhood," he lamented.

• The New York Post

God, we love Debbie Harry—iconic, sensual, intelligent, fashionable. She's still relevant decades after she became the queen of the CBGB punk scene. Last week she released her new album, Necessary Evil, and recently approved Kirsten Dunst to play her in a Michel Gondry-directed biopic. We're not sure about that decision just yet, but we trust Harry's judgment. Even at 62, she is still the coolest chick in town and we're jealous that The New York Times' Melena Ryzik got to sit down with her at the Chelsea Piers:

In slim black pants and a sleeveless Dresden Dolls T-shirt (she performed with that punk cabaret duo on Cyndi Lauper's True Colors Tour this summer), accessorized with red bra straps, a gold skull pendant, black wraparound sunglasses and her much-blonded hair, Ms. Harry still looks sexy-punk.

(Ugh, we love it!)

And legions of downtown girls imitate her Blondie-era style, from the shaggy dyed hair and red lips to the vampy shredded dresses. "Those bitches!" she joked. But she follows her progeny, counting M.I.A., Lily Allen and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs among her current favorites.

"She just never stopped being cool," said another descendant, Johanna Fateman of the post-riot-grrrl band Le Tigre.

Ms. Harry demurred. "It's hard for me to think that Blondie was so completely original," she said. "I don't really think that I'm an icon. I think an icon is a statue, something that's frozen, you know. I don't feel like that." And she added, "I don't really love walking down memory lane."

But we will because we love her and this video of a Blondie performance at CBGB's in 1977 is classic. Who else can pull off patchwork pants?

CMJ news reports:

CBGB and MVD Entertainment are pairing up to immortalize the legacy of CBGB on CD. MVD, a company itself that benefited from the publicity that CBGB and its founder, the late Hilly Kristal, afforded visionary artists, is putting out a series of albums that will feature a full live performance at the famed club. Mooney Suzuki, the Queers, and H20 will be the first set of bands to have their performances released, and MVD expects to have another set of performances out by the end of the year. As part of the partnership, MVD is honoring Kristal's legacy and vision, and donating a portion of the sales to the Hilly Kristal Foundation For Musicians And Artists.

The Bowery remembers Hilly Kristal, founder of the former punk-rock mecca CBGB, in its own special way.  read more »

"It's a sad day," said a tall man in shades with shaggy gray hair, brandishing two orange candlesticks and a big black magic marker.

He scrawled something indiscernible on the shuttered storefront at 315 Bowery shortly after 2 p.m. on Wednesday.

More legible: "RIP HILLY WE'LL MISS YOU," among other graffiti, was spray painted in large letters across the shutters. Flowers and lit candles were arranged along the sidewalk.

A small group of guys wielding notebooks and cameras loitered nearby, presumably awaiting comment from passers-by -- some of whom hadn't the foggiest idea what was going on.

"Who's Hilly?" asked one curious observer in a white knit cap and red soccer jersey. "Did he sing in a band or something?"  read more »