City Gardens Tee

There are a few t-shirts of City Gardens floating around on the web but none that model the text that was painted on the side of the iconic New Jersey building.  At least I think it was...There's only one picture I could find with this on the building but it was cool so I decided to redraw the lettering and reformat all the text to work better for tee’s and hoodies. Looks a bit more punk this way.

City Gardens bar operating primarily from 1979 to 2001 in Trenton, New Jersey and was a crucial hub for the East Coast underground music scene. It served as a vital tour stop for rising alternative bands traveling between New York City and Philadelphia. The venue hosted a massive roster of iconic punk, hardcore, new wave, alternative rock, and hip-hop artists before they became mainstream stadium acts.  It was a regular stop for a number of punk legends such as Henry Rollins, Fugazi, Dead Kennedys and The Ramones, just to name a few.  A place where many got to see artists like Green Day, R.E.M., Soundgarden and Nirvana in an intimate venue early in their careers or on the precipice of stardom.

Some highlighted performances include first time American gigs for bands Flock of Seagulls, Thompson Twins and Sinead O’Conner as well as being the first show ever for Danzig at the venue.  Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart was a bartender here from 1984-1987 and the band WEEN considered City Gardens their home base. Their first show was opening for the Butthole Surfers as young teenagers and one of their early live shows was released on the album titled, “The Live Brain Wedgie/WAD”.

It has been the subject of both a book (“No Slam Dancing, No Stage Diving, No Spikes: An Oral History of New Jersey’s Legendary City Gardens”) as well as a documentary (“Riot on the Dance Floor”).  The building still sits vacant and dilapidated in the same spot where all the action took place all those years ago.