Did Bob Dylan buy 4 Gramercy Park West, the townhouse with the front stoop where he posed for the cover of "Highway 61 Revisted"?
"Desolation Row" is the 11-minute song that is the high point of the album — "an 11-minute epic of entropy, which takes the form of a Fellini-esque parade of grotesques and oddities featuring a huge cast of iconic characters."
Here's Bob Egan, tracing down the location of the photo-shoot for the great old album:
June 29, 2017
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You have to be Dylan to put that name on your LLC. But it's a cute idea, Bob or no Bob.
$23 million. Now I know it's not Bob. Holy Price Appreciation, Batman.
Members of LLC's are secret but I think there might be some new legislation that requires foreign owners to disclose. For all we know the owners of this LLC are Lawerence Meade and Ann Althouse, husband and wife, JTWROS.
I didn't know that was a stoop, I thought it was indoors! Guess I might have looked closer. As for the high point of the album, I read some big-deal critic once who said something like, it's an album you listen to over and over, and, notably, it has a shifting high point.
I meant to say you DON'T have to be Dylan to put that name on the LLC.
Slipping . . . . .
Slipping . . . . . . .
SPLAT!
So the main idea in Dylan's mind was to be photographed in his Triumph t-shirt.
Clever boy.
That is what made the photo cool. The rest was nothing but staging. Every red blooded American poseur boy wanted a Triumph at the time. At least I did and many of my friends. I got one on my 21st birthday. Completed the pose for me. Bob did it with just a shirt.
The house was previously owned by a mayor of NY. Dylan posed for an album cover on its steps. Doubt he is the buyer. He is a Malibu guy.
Would Bob want the song reference in the name of the LLC if he was buying the place? Heh...
Spouse has become a minor celebrity from ending up as trustee for a number of LLCs with real estate holdings on a certain gossipy island where they publish property transactions in the little local weekly.
Highway 61 goes through the "Delta" region of Mississippi. It runs between Natchez and Memphis near the river in a region that is ideal for growing cotton.
In the bad old days, it was densely populated by mostly black people who did the backbreaking work of of cotton growing. And it was the home of the blues, as well it might be.
With the advent of farm machines, the region was depopulated. When you drive through you can tell by the shabby and half empty towns that there were formerly a lot of very poor people here. There are far fewer now but there are still a lot.
If you ever have a chance, drive along Route 61. You'll learn a lot.
A side note. In Natchez, they have a riverboat casino. Years ago, the casino management got the brilliant idea of cashing welfare checks and offering people a 10% premium. The idea was the casino would get the premium and the rest of the check right back in the next few minutes. Genius, no? Mississippi made them stop.
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