JOEY RAMONE BIRTHDAY BASH IN NEW YORK IN MAY, 2011.

Copyright 2011 -> : Jari-Pekka Laitio-Ramone.

I (JARI-PEKKA LAITIO-RAMONE) COMPOSED FIVE PHOTO COLLAGES OF PHOTOS RELATED TO JOEY RAMONE BIRTHDAY BASH IN NEW YORK, USA ON MAY 19, 2011 AND MY TIME IN GENERAL IN NEW YORK.
SIXTH PHOTO COLLAGE HAS PHOTOS OF MY TIME IN ICELAND AND ST. LUCIA.


THIS IS PAGE/ PHOTO COLLAGE 5:
GO TO PAGE 6
OR GO BACK TO PAGE 4.






PHOTOS:
Photo, upmost,
and photo 2nd upmost: Photo of Joey Ramone Place sign and Noah "Noki" Citrin. Read more of sign here. You can see Joey Ramone Place sign in a of Noki photo.
Noki Citrin was Joey Ramone's best friend in Forest Hills High School, New York. Noki, Tommy Ramone and Richard Adler lived in the same apartment building in Forest Hills. You can read really touching interview of Noki on my third book Ramones: Soundtrack Of Our Lives. Noki and Joey both got beat up a lot. Noki and Joey had a golden friendship which helped them both get through Forest Hills High School in the mid 1960's. Joey, Noki and kid called Demetrius had weekly jams.
Tommy Ramone told me on one of his interviews with me: "Noki remember the same things of what I remembered. The first time I met Joey was with Noki. Noki was playing with Joey and he invited me up to jam. So he was there when I first time met Joey."

Left photo, middle: Sign of The Hotel Chelsea/ Chelsea Hotel in Manhattan, New York, USA. Dee Dee Ramone wrote his novel book Chelsea Horror Hotel. Chelsea Horror Hotel was released on May 10th, 2001. Read more here. Also The Chelsea Hotel had hosted guests like Janis Joplin, Bob Dylan, Sid Vicious (Sex Pistols) and Nancy Spungen (Sid's girlfriend). Sid killed Nancy at The Chelsea Hotel.

Photo below of Joey Ramone Place photo: Ramones fan Tara Stites was staying at The Chelsea Hotel (and I was staying one or two nights, most of other nights I was staying at Arturo Vega's apartment in this trip), I took this photo of Tara from the balcony of The Chelsea Hotel.

Photo, middle leftmost: Photo of one "lively" art piece at The Chelsea Hotel.

Photo, middle: Arturo Vega was the Ramones creative director since 1974. You can see him holding first Ramones eagle logo T-shirt he ever designed. He designed most of the Ramones art, shirts, special collections etc. when all members were alive, and he still does best merchandise.
Arturo worked as the Ramones lighting director. With the Ramones he worked on 2 261 shows, and only missed two Ramones shows altogether. He definitely is/was one of their closest friends. Arturo started the first official Ramones homepage in December 1999. One of the biggest compliments I had ever received was in December 1999, the Ramones members and Arturo Vega chose me (Jari-Pekka Laitio-Ramone) to receive #11 in the official Ramones fan club; #1-10 were given to the Ramones and people close to them. It was an amazing honor to receive the first fan number. I wasn't asked or told about this.
By that point in 1999 , I was already into my fourth year of running my homepage. Visit his RamonesWorld.com site here and buy merchandise from him.
You can read really extensive interviews of Arturo from my books, click here to see details.

Photo, lowest in right: Ramones fan Maria Patellaro and John Holmstrom of Punk Magazine etc.

Photo, upmost,
and photo 2nd upmost: Photo of sign of Joey Ramone Place and Noah "Noki" Citrin. Read more of sign here. You can see Joey Ramone Place sign in a top of Noki photo.






MORE OF Joey Ramone Place sign... (see again topmost photos).
The city of New York renamed the corner of 2nd Street and the Bowery on November 30, 2003 at 1PM. Close to Arturo Vega's apartment and where was before CBGBs.
After Joey Ramone Birthday Bash memorial event on May 19, 2001 (Joey became 50 years young that day), Ramones fan named Maureen Wojciechowski got idea of honorary street sign for Joey Ramone. She felt that it was important to keep the memory of Joey alive. Lending Maureen support, Joey's mother Charlotte Lesher and founder of PUNK Magazine John Holmstrom also attended these meetings. Maureen wrote to me that after the first meeting, only 2 of the 8 board members had even heard the name Ramones so she knew she had a lot of hard work ahead of her....
The board members asked Maureen to make clear what CBGB & the other neighbours would think of that etc. They asked her to come back in November 2001... The second community board meeting to approve the honorary street sign with the name of Joey Ramone Place was a success. The Public Safety and Transportation Committee of Manhattan's Community Board 3 approved a proposition by Maureen Wojciechowski. Hilly Kristal (RIP), owner of CBGB's, attended the meeting, as did Charlotte & John Holmstrom.
So final step was on November 30, 2003. There was an official ceremony, when they put sign also. During ceremonies of sign were speaking for example Tommy Ramone, Marky Ramone, Charlotte Lesher, Mickey Leigh, Arturo Vega, Steven Van Zandt, Danny Fields...
Read more here.






THIS IS PAGE/ PHOTO COLLAGE 5:
GO TO PAGE 6
OR GO BACK TO PAGE 4.