KGB in the News

The establishment is maintaining a longstanding neighborhood tradition as a home for writers and their work.

A faint red hue illuminates the door frame of one of the East Village’s last literary hangouts, the KGB Bar on East Fourth Street.

Perhaps it’s fitting that this neon glow almost seems like a secret invitation to enter the space, located in a building that owner Denis Woychuk calls “Culture House,” a space retaining its identity as a literary bar when many other cultural institutions in the neighborhood have come and gone.

“We do a lot of culture here,” Woychuk says. >> read more

This a Ukrainian Facebook page with some cool videos. So if you ever wanted to brush up on your Ukrainian, here’s your chance!

This post is the second of a three-part series called Histories of Fourth Street, from East to West, a collaboration between GVSHP and the students in NYU’s Fall 2015 Intro to Public History course. Each group of students was tasked with preparing a presentation around a particular topic concerning a section or block of Fourth Street in conjunction with the public program held on Wednesday, December 16th. Each group was also tasked with sharing their discoveries with us on Off the Grid. The following post was written by Candyce Quintyne, Charlie Morgan and Kate Schnakenberg.

It only takes about 30 seconds to walk between the buildings at 64 and 85 East 4th Street. Today that walk would take you from a show at the IATI and Paradise Theaters to a drink at the KGB bar. But nearly one hundred years ago, that same distance would take you deep into the heart of the labor organizing movement on the Lower East Side. >> read more

Taking a Mafia walking tour of New York with Meyer Lansky II

It would be an exaggeration to say that we considered Meyer Lansky, the notorious Jewish gangster who died in 1983, a member of the family. Then again, he wasn’t a total stranger either; family members made his memorable acquaintance while on vacation in Israel in the early 1970s.

I never got to meet him because, by that age, I was traveling on my own. But my mother and two younger brothers were staying at a resort hotel outside of Tel Aviv—no one seems able to conjure up the name of the place four decades later—where my siblings…

Singer/actor/activist talks midterm elections and sings a song

This past election night saw the return of the KGB Radio Hour at KGB Bar in New York City. Host Mark Jacobson brought together a panel that included former Congressman Anthony Weiner, music producer Danny Goldberg, and The Daily Beast’s own Michael Daly.

Singer/songwriter Steve Earle also joined the panel as KGB Radio Hour’s political commentator. The actor (The Wire, Treme) and activist made no bones about his political leanings, proclaiming himself “a real live lefty.” He offered his thoughts on President Obama, libertarianism and the importance of voting.

Earle also gave a short musical performance, which included this rendition of his own “Christmas in Washington.”