Complex Numbers

Houses of the Holy

I'm going to talk about a British thing today. No, not that British thing. Or that one. Or even that one. And it doesn't even involve York, but New York.

Physical Graffiti Building  
Manhattan, New York
The East Village tenement from the cover of Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album has a tea shop on the ground floor.

Yes, I've been all over Manhattan, but it's a big place and I don't think I ever passed by this building. Hell, I owned a copy of the album as a kid. (Me: "Most expensive album cover ever made." Dad: "And you bought it?") I guess I just assumed the building was in the UK somewhere, because, you know, Led Zeppelin.

Incidentally, expensive to produce, not to buy. And I was just going by some random DJ's assertion; I never bothered to verify it, because this was before the internet and also I was already lazy. Further, for all I know, that was bullshit, or maybe some later album exceeded it. Anyway, as I recall, the consumer price was about the same as any other double LP collection. Pink Floyd's The Wall, e.g., which also had amazing cover art.

Led Zeppelin’s 1975 album Physical Graffiti is considered one of their best, featuring such fan-favorite songs as “Kashmir” and “Trampled Under Foot.” Its release saw a delay due to the complexity of its cover design, which proved difficult to manufacture.

Hence the supposed cost.

Designed by Peter Corriston, the iconic die-cut artwork portrays a symmetrical brownstone tenement block, something that could only hail from New York City, with each letter of the album’s title written on its window.

I always thought the cover was clever. It's one of those things that you can only appreciate as an LP cover. Not nearly as impactful on CD, and certainly not as digitized artwork on the internet.

The building in question is a real tenement in Manhattan, still standing at 96 and 98 St. Mark’s Place. Since similar-looking buildings are not uncommon in the city, more than a few tourists have mistaken other brownstones for the one on the album cover. But once you know the actual location, it’s not hard to find.

Other fun places to visit in Lower Manhattan include the Ghostbusters firehouse  , clear on the other side of the island; and, very close to the PG tenements, The Museum of the American Gangster.  

Today, the East Village building is home to a basement tea shop aptly named Physical GraffiTea, boasting a great selection of organic, fair-trade tea and a reputation for offering a wide selection of loose leaf tea and medicinal blends.

A tea shop with a punny name? Now I definitely have to go.

As for my copy of the album, well, it—along with a couple hundred other LPs—was destroyed in a flood, when I was renting a shitty basement apartment not far from where I live right now. This was around the time that CDs were supplanting LPs and cassettes, 1987 or 88 or so. I lost a great deal that fateful night, but the one that still hurts when I think about it, 35 years later, is my album collection.

I never did replace Physical Graffiti. But another thing I'll always remember about it is my old dad (he wasn't much older than I am right now) coming into my room while I was listening to it and going, "That's good music." Considering he would have turned 105 tomorrow, and he grew up pre-rock, I called that high praise.

Can't let a music entry go without including some.

Oh, let the sun beat down upon my face
And stars fill my dream
I'm a traveler of both time and space
To be where I have been
To sit with elders of the gentle race
This world has seldom seen
They talk of days for which they sit and wait
All will be revealed