Max's Kansas City - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Max's Kansas City was a nightclub

Nightclub

A nightclub is an entertainment venue which usually operates late into the night...

Restaurant

A restaurant is an establishment which prepares and serves food and drink to customers in return for money. Meals are generally served and eaten on premises, but many restaurants also offer take-out and food delivery services...

at 213 Park Avenue South, in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, which was a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s.

Origin of name

Opened by Mickey Ruskin (1933–1983) in December 1965, the name Max's Kansas City does not come from any club owners direct connections to Kansas City

Kansas City, Missouri

Kansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...

(neither from Kansas nor from Missouri). Mickey Ruskin grew up in Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City, New Jersey

Jersey City is the seat of Hudson County, New Jersey, United States.Part of the New York metropolitan area, Jersey City lies between the Hudson River and Upper New York Bay across from Lower Manhattan and the Hackensack River and Newark Bay...

and was educated at Cornell University

Cornell University

Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

.

There are two stories as to how the name came to be, both involving suggestions by the poet Joel Oppenheimer

Joel Oppenheimer

Joel Lester Oppenheimer was an American poet associated with both the Black Mountain poets and the New York School. He was the first director of the St. Marks Poetry Project...

. The first story is that the name commemorated a poetic place described by fellow poet Max Finstein

Max Finstein

Max Finstein was an American poet.Finstein was born in Boston, MA. After serving in the military during World War II, he spent time in New York and San Francisco, becoming friends with poets Allen Ginsberg, LeRoi Jones and Joel Oppenheimer, among others...

. Oppenheimer and Finstein were among the poets who had gathered at Ruskin’s earlier establishment the 9th Circle in Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...

. The second story is that when Oppenheimer was a kid, "all the steakhouses had Kansas City on the menu because the best steak was Kansas City-cut

Strip steak

The strip steak is a type of cut of beef steaks. Internationally it is called a club steak. In the United States and Canada it is also known as New York strip, strip loin, shell steak, or Kansas City strip steak, In Australia it is known as a porterhouse steak...

, so I thought it should be 'something Kansas City.'" "Max" was chosen because it sounded "restauranty."

Oppenheimer also suggested the menu items on the marquee of “Steak, Lobster, Chick Peas.”

Max's I

After the opening of Max's by Mickey Ruskin in December 1965, it quickly became a hangout of choice for artists and sculptors of the New York School

New York School

The New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...

, like John Chamberlain, Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg

Robert Rauschenberg was an American artist who came to prominence in the 1950s transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art. Rauschenberg is well-known for his "Combines" of the 1950s, in which non-traditional materials and objects were employed in innovative combinations...

and Larry Rivers

Larry Rivers

Larry Rivers was an American artist, musician, filmmaker and occasional actor. Rivers resided and maintained studios in New York City, Southampton, New York and Zihuatanejo, Mexico.-Biography:...

, whose presence attracted hip celebrities and the jet set

Jet set

"Jet set" is a journalistic term that was used to describe an international social group of wealthy people, organizing and participating all around the world in social activities that are unreachable to ordinary people...

. Neil Williams

Neil Williams (artist)

Neil Williams was an American painter. Williams was an abstract painter primarily known for his pioneering work with shaped canvases in the early 1960s. His paintings of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are associated with geometric abstraction, hard-edge painting, color field, and lyrical abstraction,...

, Larry Zox

Larry Zox

Lawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....

, Forrest (Frosty) Myers, Larry Poons

Larry Poons

Lawrence Poons , better known as Larry Poons, is an abstract painter who was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician...

, Brice Marden

Brice Marden

Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...

, Bob Neuwirth

Bob Neuwirth

Bob Neuwirth is an American singer, songwriter, record producer and visual artist. A mainstay of the early 1960s Cambridge, Massachusetts, folk scene, he subsequently became a friend and associate of Bob Dylan alongside whom he appears in D.A...

, Dan Christensen

Dan Christensen

Dan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....

, Ronnie Landfield

Ronnie Landfield

Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...

, Robert (Tex) Wray, Peter Reginato

Peter Reginato

Peter Reginato , is an American abstract sculptor.Reginato was born in Dallas, Texas, but grew up in the hills outside Oakland, California and he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. He began making abstract sculpture in 1965 and moved to New York City in 1966 to pursue his career as a sculptor...

, Carl Andre

Carl Andre

Carl Andre is an American minimalist artist recognized for his ordered linear format and grid format sculptures. His sculptures range from large public artworks to more intimate tile patterns arranged on the floor of an exhibition space Carl Andre (born September 16, 1935) is an American...

, Dan Graham

Dan Graham

Dan Graham , is a conceptual artist now working out of New York City. He is an influential figure in the field of contemporary art, both a practitioner of conceptual art and an art critic and theorist. His art career began in 1964 when he moved to New York and opened the John Daniels Gallery....

, Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner

Lawrence Weiner was a central figure in the formation of conceptual art in the 1960s His work often takes the form of typographic texts.- Life and career :...

, Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson was an American artist famous for his land art.-Background and education:Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey and studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York....

, Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth

Joseph Kosuth , is an American conceptual artist. Kosuth lives in New York and Rome.-Early life and career:Kosuth was born in Toledo, Ohio. He attended the Toledo Museum School of Design from 1955 to 1962 and studied privately under the Belgian painter Line Bloom Draper. In 1963, Kosuth enrolled at...

, Brigid Berlin

Brigid Berlin

Brigid Berlin is an American artist and former Warhol superstar.-Early years:Berlin was the eldest of three daughters born to socialite parents, Muriel Johnson "Honey" Berlin and Richard E. Berlin, into a world of Manhattan privilege. Her father was chairman of the Hearst media empire for 32 years...

, Carlos Villa, David R. Prentice

David R. Prentice

David R. Prentice is an American artist.Prentice was born in Hartford, Connecticut and studied at the Art School of the University of Hartford from 1962 to 1964, after which he worked as a studio assistant to Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Alexander Liberman and Malcolm...

, Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein

Roy Lichtenstein was a prominent American pop artist. During the 1960s his paintings were exhibited at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City and along with Andy Warhol, Jasper Johns, James Rosenquist and others he became a leading figure in the new art movement...

, James Monte, Peter Forakis

Peter Forakis

Peter Forakis was an American artist known as an abstract geometric sculptor. The son of a Greek immigrant, he grew up on the Wyoming prairie until the age of 10 when his family moved to Oakland, California. Eventually they settled in Modesto, California...

, Peter Young

Peter Young (artist)

Peter Young, is an American painter who was born in Pittsburgh, Pa, January 2, 1940. He is primarily known for his abstract paintings that have been widely exhibited in the United States and in Europe since the 1960s. His work is associated with Minimal Art, Post-minimalism, and Lyrical Abstraction...

, Mark di Suvero

Mark di Suvero

Marco Polo "Mark" di Suvero is an American abstract expressionist sculptor born Marco Polo Levi in Shanghai, China in 1933 to Italian expatriates. He immigrated to San Francisco, California in 1942 with his family. From 1953 to 1957, he attended the University of California, Berkeley to study...

, Larry Bell

Larry Bell (artist)

Larry Bell is a contemporary American artist and sculptor. He lives and works in Taos, New Mexico, and maintains a studio in Venice, California. From 1957 to 1959 he studied at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles as a student of Robert Irwin, Richards Ruben, Robert Chuey, and Emerson Woelfer...

, Lee Lozano

Lee Lozano

Lee Lozano was an American painter, and visual and conceptual artist.-Early years:Born Lenore Knaster in Newark, New Jersey, she started to use the name "Lee" at the age of fourteen, often preferring to go by the simpler, if more enigmatic "E." She attended the University of Chicago as an...

, Donald Judd

Donald Judd

Donald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...

, Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin

Dan Flavin was an American minimalist artist famous for creating sculptural objects and installations from commercially available fluorescent light fixtures.-Early life and career:...

, Richard Serra

Richard Serra

Richard Serra is an American minimalist sculptor and video artist known for working with large-scale assemblies of sheet metal. Serra was involved in the Process Art Movement.-Early life and education:...

, Kenneth Showell, Jack Whitten

Jack Whitten

Jack Whitten is an American abstract painter.- Biography :Whitten was born in Bessemer, Alabama, the son of a seamstress, twice widowed. His father, a coal-miner, died while Whitten was a child...

, Philip Glass

Philip Glass

Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...

, Max Neuhaus

Max Neuhaus

American musician Max Neuhaus was a percussionist and interpreter of contemporary music of the 1960s who moved on to become a pioneer in the field of sound art, a term he rejected but with which he is nonetheless associated...

, Rosemarie Castoro, Ray Johnson

Ray Johnson

Raymond Edward Johnson , known primarily as a collagist and correspondence artist, was a seminal figure in the history of Neo-Dada and early Pop art...

, John Clem Clarke, Malcolm Morley

Malcolm Morley

Malcolm Morley is an English artist now living in the United States. He is best known as a photorealist.-Early life:Morley was born in north London. He had a troubled childhood, and did not discover art until serving a three-year stint in Wormwood Scrubs prison...

, Carl Gliko, Marjorie Strider

Marjorie Strider

Marjorie Strider is an American painter, sculptor and performance artist best known for her three-dimensional paintings and site-specific soft sculpture installations.-Biography:...

, Edward Avedisian

Edward Avedisian

Edward Avedisian was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction.-Early career:He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston...

, Robert Povlich, Billy Hoffman, Michael Steiner, David Budd, Norman Bluhm, Carolee Schneemann

Carolee Schneemann

Carolee Schneemann is an American visual artist, known for her discourses on the body, sexuality and gender. She received a B.A. from Bard College and an M.F.A. from the University of Illinois. Her work is primarily characterized by research into visual traditions, taboos, and the body of the...

, Dorothea Rockburne

Dorothea Rockburne

Dorothea Rockburne is an abstract painter drawing inspiration primarily from her deep interest in mathematics and astronomy. In 1950 she moved to the United States to attend Black Mountain College, where she studied with mathematician Max Dehn, a lifelong influence on her work...

, Alan Shields, Peter Hutchinson, Lenore Jaffee, Colette Justine

Colette Justine

Colette Justine better known as Colette is a multimedia artist known for her pioneering work in performance art, street art and the constructed photograph...

, William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

, Tiger Morse and Marisol

Marisol Escobar

Maria Sol Escobar , otherwise known simply as Marisol, is a sculptor born in Paris of Venezuelan lineage, living in Europe, the United States and Caracas.-Education:...

were just a few of the artists seen regularly at Max's - the favorite place for artists in New York City

New York City

during the 1960s. Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning

Willem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....

, Barnett Newman

Barnett Newman

Barnett Newman was an American artist. He is seen as one of the major figures in abstract expressionism and one of the foremost of the color field painters.-Early life:...

, art critics Lucy Lippard, Robert Hughes

Robert Hughes (critic)

Robert Studley Forrest Hughes, AO is an Australian-born art critic, writer and television documentary maker who has resided in New York since 1970.-Early life:...

, Clement Greenberg

Clement Greenberg

Clement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...

, and Harold Rosenberg

Harold Rosenberg

Harold Rosenberg was an American writer, educator, philosopher and art critic. He coined the term Action Painting in 1952 for what was later to be known as abstract expressionism. The term was first employed in Rosenberg's essay "American Action Painters" published in the December 1952 issue of...

, art dealers Leo Castelli

Leo Castelli

Leo Castelli was an American art dealer. He was best known to the public as an art dealer whose gallery showcased cutting edge Contemporary art for five decades...

, and David Whitney

David Whitney

David Whitney was an American art curator, collector, gallerist and critic. He led a very private life and was not well known outside the art world, even though he participated naked in the 1965 Claes Oldenburg happening Washes...

(whose gallery was across the street) and architect Philip Johnson

Philip Johnson

Philip Cortelyou Johnson was an influential American architect.In 1930, he founded the Department of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, and later , as a trustee, he was awarded an American Institute of Architects Gold Medal and the first Pritzker Architecture...

, occasionally would be seen there as well.

It was also a favorite hangout of Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

and his entourage from The Factory

The Factory

The Factory was Andy Warhol's original New York City studio from 1962 to 1968, although his later studios were known as The Factory as well. The Factory was located on the fifth floor at 231 East 47th Street, in Midtown Manhattan. The rent was "only about one hundred dollars a year"...

. The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground

The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...

played their last shows at Max's in the summer of 1970. It was a home base for the short-lived Glam Rock

Glam rock

Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...

scene, which included David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

, Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

, Lou Reed

Lou Reed

Lewis Allan "Lou" Reed is an American rock musician, songwriter, and photographer. He is best known as guitarist, vocalist, and principal songwriter of The Velvet Underground, and for his successful solo career, which has spanned several decades...

and the New York Dolls

New York Dolls

The New York Dolls is an American rock band, formed in New York in 1971. The band's protopunk sound prefigured much of what was to come in the punk rock era; their visual style influenced the look of many new wave and 1980s-era glam metal groups, and they began the local New York scene that later...

. Many bands made early appearances there. Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Springsteen

Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...

played a solo acoustic set in the summer of 1972. It was the site of Aerosmith

Aerosmith

Aerosmith is an American rock band, sometimes referred to as "The Bad Boys from Boston" and "America's Greatest Rock and Roll Band". Their style, which is rooted in blues-based hard rock, has come to also incorporate elements of pop, heavy metal, and rhythm and blues, and has inspired many...

's first New York City gigs, Columbia president Clive Davis signed them there. Bob Marley & The Wailers

Bob Marley & The Wailers

Bob Marley & The Wailers were a Jamaican reggae, ska and rocksteady band formed by Bob Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer in 1963. Additional members were Junior Braithwaite, Beverley Kelso, Cherry Smith and Aston and Carlton Barrett...

opened for Springsteen at Max's at the beginning of Marley's career on the international circuit. Tim Buckley

Tim Buckley

Timothy Charles Buckley III was an American vocalist, and musician. His music and style changed considerably through the years; his first album was mostly folk oriented, but over time his music incorporated jazz, psychedelia, funk, soul, avant-garde and an evolving "voice as instrument," sound...

, Tom Waits

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...

, Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Raitt

Bonnie Lynn Raitt is an American blues singer-songwriter and a renowned slide guitar player. During the 1970s, Raitt released a series of acclaimed roots-influenced albums which incorporated elements of blues, rock, folk and country, but she is perhaps best known for her more commercially...

, Odetta

Odetta

Odetta Holmes, known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, songwriter, and a human rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire consisted largely of American folk music, blues, jazz, and spirituals...

, Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk

Dave Van Ronk was an American folk singer, born in Brooklyn, New York, who settled in Greenwich Village, New York, and was eventually nicknamed the "Mayor of MacDougal Street" ....

, John Herald

John Herald

John Herald was an American folk and bluegrass songwriter, solo and studio musician, and one-time member of The Greenbriar Boys trio.-Biography:...

, Garland Jeffries, Sylvia Tyson

Sylvia Tyson

Sylvia Tyson, CM , is a musician, performer, singer-songwriter and broadcaster. From 1959 to 1974, she was half of the popular folk duo Ian & Sylvia with Ian Tyson....

, Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris is an American singer-songwriter and musician. In addition to her work as a solo artist and bandleader, both as an interpreter of other composers' works and as a singer-songwriter, she is a sought-after backing vocalist and duet partner, working with numerous other artists including...

, Gram Parsons

Gram Parsons

Gram Parsons was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist and pianist. Parsons is best known for his work within the country genre; he also mixed blues, folk, and rock to create what he called "Cosmic American Music"...

, Elliott Murphy

Elliott Murphy

Elliott James Murphy is an American rock singer-songwriter, novelist, producer and journalist living in Paris.-Biography:Elliott James Murphy, Jr. was born in Rockville Centre, New York to a show business family...

and Country Joe were some of the musicians that played there. Fashion designer Carlos Falchi

Carlos Falchi

Carlos Falchi is a Brazilian-born handbag and accessories designer known for his patchwork designs. He has won awards for accessory design, and his accessories have appeared in several TV shows and movies...

was a busboy

Busboy

Busser, busboy and busgirl are terms used in the United States for someone who works in the restaurant and catering industry clearing tables, taking dirty dishes to the dishwasher, setting tables and otherwise assisting the waiting staff....

there in 1970.

By 1974, Max's had lost popularity among the art crowd and the glam era was in decline. The legendary establishment closed in December of that year. Ed Koch

Ed Koch

Edward Irving "Ed" Koch is an American lawyer, politician, and political commentator. He served in the United States House of Representatives from 1969 to 1977 and three terms as mayor of New York City from 1978 to 1989...

later had a campaign office in the building.

Mickey Ruskin

Shortly after graduating from Cornell Law School

Cornell Law School

Cornell Law School, located in Ithaca, New York, is a graduate school of Cornell University and one of the five Ivy League law schools. The school confers three law degrees...

, Mickey Ruskin opened The Tenth Street Coffeehouse, which featured nightly poetry readings. He then opened Les Deux Magots, on East Ninth Street. His next endeavor was a bar called The Ninth Circle, a hangout for artists and musicians on West 10th Street. After opening Max's Kansas City, he opened similar restaurants including: the Longview Country Club (later known as Levine's Restaurant) that was on E. 19th street and Park Avenue South across the street from Max's and Max's Terre Haute, on the Upper East Side

Upper East Side

The Upper East Side is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, between Central Park and the East River. The Upper East Side lies within an area bounded by 59th Street to 96th Street, and the East River to Fifth Avenue-Central Park...

, but they did not do as well. His last club during the Max's era was The Lower Manhattan Ocean Club, on Chambers Street

Chambers Street (Manhattan)

Chambers Street is a bi-directional street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It runs from River Terrace, Battery Park City, in the west, past PS 234 and Stuyvesant High School to 1 Centre Street, the Manhattan Municipal Building‎, to the east. In the early 20th century the street...

in TriBeCa

TriBeCa

Tribeca is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York in the United States. Its name is an acronym based on the words "Triangle below Canal Street", and is properly bounded by Canal Street, West Street, Broadway, and Vesey Street...

. After Max's closed he briefly worked at the Locale a bar on Waverly Place

Waverly Place

Waverly Place is a narrow street in the Greenwich Village section of New York City, in the borough of Manhattan. Waverly changes direction roughly at its midpoint, turning from a north-by-northwest/south-by-southeast street to a northwest/southeast street...

, Ruskin's last enterprise was Chinese Chance (nicknamed One U) a bar and restaurant that he opened in partnership with Richard Sanders located at 1 University Place in Greenwich Village

Greenwich Village

. The French composer Duncan Youngerman and the poet and mail artist Adam Czarnowski both worked there as busboys. Lauren Hutton

Lauren Hutton

Lauren Hutton is an American model and actress. She is best-known for her starring roles in the movies American Gigolo and Lassiter, and also for her fashion modeling career.-Personal life:...

, Ellen Barkin

Ellen Barkin

Ellen Barkin is an American film, television and theatre actress.-Early life:She was born Ellen Rona Barkin in Bronx, a borough of New York City, New York, the daughter of Evelyn , a hospital administrator who worked at Jamaica Hospital, and Sol Barkin, a chemical salesman...

, Gerard Malanga

Gerard Malanga

Gerard Joseph Malanga is an American poet, photographer, filmmaker, curator and archivist.-Early life:Born in the Bronx, New York, Malanga graduated from the School of Industrial Art in Manhattan and attended Wagner College on Staten Island...

, Joe Jackson

Joe Jackson (musician)

Joe Jackson is an English musician and singer-songwriter now living in Berlin, whose five Grammy Award nominations span from 1979 to 2001...

, Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell, CC is a Canadian musician, singer songwriter, and painter. Mitchell began singing in small nightclubs in her native Saskatchewan and Western Canada and then busking in the streets and dives of Toronto...

, Nico

Nico

Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...

, David Bowie

David Bowie

and a score of other "Lower Manhattan" celebs hung out there, as well as the artists that frequented Max's and the doormen of the famous Mudd Club

Mudd Club

The Mudd Club was a TriBeCa nightclub that was opened in October 1978 by Steve Mass, art curator Diego Cortez and Anya Phillips, a figure in the downtown punk scene...

. Ruskin died in New York City

New York City

after a late night out in the early morning hours of May 16, 1983 at the age of 50.

Max's II

The club reopened in 1975 under new ownership of Tommy Dean Mills, who initially thought he would make it a disco

Disco

Disco is a genre of dance music. Disco acts charted high during the mid-1970s, and the genre's popularity peaked during the late 1970s. It had its roots in clubs that catered to African American, gay, psychedelic, and other communities in New York City and Philadelphia during the late 1960s and...

. Peter Crowley, who had been booking the same, early punk bands

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

that played at CBGB

CBGB

CBGB was a music club at 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street in the borough of Manhattan in New York City.Founded by Hilly Kristal in 1973, it was originally intended to feature its namesake musical styles, but became a forum for American punk and New Wave bands like Ramones, Misfits, Television, the...

, and Mothers, a gay bar

Gay bar

A gay bar is a drinking establishment that caters to an exclusively or predominantly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender clientele; the term gay is used as a broadly inclusive concept for LGBT and queer communities...

on 23rd Street (Manhattan)

23rd Street (Manhattan)

23rd Street is a broad thoroughfare in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is one of few two-way streets in the gridiron of the borough. As with Manhattan's other "crosstown" streets, it is divided at Fifth Avenue, in this case at Madison Square Park, into its east and west sections. Since...

, was hired to start booking bands at Max's.

Under Crowley's guidance the club became one of the cradles of punk, regularly featuring bands like New York Dolls

New York Dolls

, Wayne County

Wayne County & the Electric Chairs

Wayne County & the Electric Chairs were part of the first wave of punk bands from the 1970s. The band is headed by Georgia transgendered woman, Wayne County, who later changed her name to Jayne County.-Career:...

, Cherry Vanilla

Cherry Vanilla

Cherry Vanilla is an American singer-songwriter, publicist, and actress. After working as an actress in Andy Warhol's Pork, she worked as a publicist for David Bowie, before finding fame as a rock singer. She subsequently became a publicist for Vangelis.-Career:Kathleen Dorritie was born in...

, The Fast, Patti Smith Group, Ramones

Ramones

The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...

, The Heartbreakers, Television

Television (band)

Television was an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. They are best known for the album Marquee Moon and widely regarded as one of the founders of "punk" and New Wave music. Television was part of the early 1970s New York underground rock scene, along with bands like the Patti...

, Suicide

Suicide (band)

Suicide is an American electronic protopunk musical duo, intermittently active since 1970 and composed of vocalist Alan Vega and Martin Rev on synthesizers and drum machines. They are an early synthesizer/vocal musical duo....

, Blondie

Blondie (band)

Blondie is an American rock band, founded by singer Deborah Harry and guitarist Chris Stein. The band was a pioneer in the early American New Wave and punk scenes of the mid-1970s...

, Talking Heads, The Dictators

The Dictators

The Dictators are an American punk rock band formed in New York City in 1973. Critic John Dougan said that they were "one of the finest and most influential proto-punk bands to walk the earth." The Dictators are represented in the "Punk Wing" of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, in Cleveland, Ohio...

, The Cramps

The Cramps

The Cramps were an American rock band, formed in 1976 and active until 2009. The band split after the death of lead singer Lux Interior. Their line-up rotated much over their existence, with the husband and wife duo of Interior and lead guitarist Poison Ivy the only permanent members...

, Mink DeVille

Mink DeVille

Mink DeVille was a rock band known for its association with early punk rock bands at New York’s CBGB nightclub and for being a showcase for the music of Willy DeVille. The band recorded six albums in the years 1977 to 1985. Except for frontman Willy DeVille, the original members of the band played...

, Misfits, The Fleshtones

The Fleshtones

The Fleshtones are an American garage rock band from Queens, New York formed in 1976.- 1976-1979 :The Fleshtones were formed in 1976 in Whitestone, New York by Keith Streng and Marek Pakulski The Fleshtones are an American garage rock band from Queens, New York formed in 1976.- 1976-1979 :The...

, The B-52's

The B-52's

The B-52's are an American rock band, formed in Athens, Georgia in 1976. The original line-up consisted of Fred Schneider , Kate Pierson , Cindy Wilson , Ricky Wilson , and Keith Strickland . Following Ricky Wilson's death in 1985 Strickland switched to guitar...

and Klaus Nomi

Klaus Nomi

Klaus Sperber , better known as Klaus Nomi, was a German countertenor noted for his wide vocal range and an unusual, otherworldly stage persona....

, as well as out-of-town bands in the same vein such as The Runaways

The Runaways

The Runaways were an American all-girl rock band that recorded and performed in the second half of the 1970s. The band released four studio albums and one live set during its run. Among its best known songs: "Cherry Bomb", "Queens of Noise", "Neon Angels On the Road to Ruin", "California Paradise"...

and The Damned. After the breakup of the Sex Pistols

Sex Pistols

The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...

, Sid Vicious

Sid Vicious

Sid Vicious was an English musician best known as the bassist of the influential punk rock group Sex Pistols...

played many of his solo gigs there. Devo

Devo

Devo is an American band formed in 1973 consisting of members from Kent and Akron, Ohio. The classic line-up of the band includes two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales . The band had a #14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", and has maintained a cult...

played several shows at Max's in 1977, including a show where they were introduced by David Bowie

David Bowie

as "the band of the future."

Max's original site closed its doors for the last time in November 1981. Bad Brains

Bad Brains

Bad Brains is an American hardcore punk band formed in Washington, D.C., in 1977. They are widely regarded as among the pioneers of hardcore punk, though the band's members objected to this term to describe their music. They are also an adept reggae band, while later recordings featured elements of...

were the headliner on the final night. The building survives and now houses a Korean deli called Green Café.

Max's III

Mills reopened the club again on January 27, 1998, at a new location—240 West 52d Street—site of the former Lone Star Roadhouse. However, it closed shortly after opening.

The opening had been delayed due to litigation by Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin, who claimed that she owned the trademark to Max's Kansas City and was granted a temporary restraining order to prevent use of the name.

Aftermath

In 2000, Acidwork Productions, Inc., a production company founded by Neil Holstein (second cousin of Mickey Ruskin) began working in conjunction with Victoria Ruskin (Mickey Ruskin's daughter) on a feature length documentary about Mickey and his many establishments, including Max's Kansas City.

In 2001, Yvonne Sewall-Ruskin established the Max's Kansas City Project in memory of the late Mickey Ruskin who fathered two of her children. To honor the spirit inherent in Ruskin's philosophy of helping artists in need, the project, a 501(c)(3) non-profit provides emergency funding and resources for individuals in the arts in crisis and empowers teens through the arts.

External links

www.maxskansascity.com Official site
www.maxskansascity.org Max's Kansas City Project
www.acidwork.com Mickey Ruskin documentary

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Origin of name

Max's I

Mickey Ruskin

Max's II

Max's III

Aftermath

Further reading

External links