Why am I showing a nondescript corner in Marine Park, Quentin Road at East 35th Street? The corner seems newly remodeled, with a day care center occupying the ground floor.
When I previously shuffled by in September 2002 it looked like this and was home to a catering hall.
Back in the 1970s, though, this was one of the premier rock venues in Brooklyn, Zappa’s, which for a time was known as the Rock Palace. The Good Rats were one of the premier live acts in the Northeast from the 1960s into the 2000s.
Tommy Dean Najarian, Zappas’ sound engineer:
For you history buffs, Zappa’s used to be located on the corner of 35th Street and Quentin Road before moving down the block to the corner of 36th Street and Quentin Road. The original site was then converted to Fantasy Island disco, then Marquee. Prior to Zappa’s, it was also the home of the Rock Palace and Camelot niteclubs. Some of us spent a good deal of our lives working at the club in it’s various incarnations.
After its conversion to a disco, the hard rock scene in Brooklyn shifted to L’Amour in Bensonhurst in 1981, which packed them in with top metal acts until 2004. By then, the Brooklyn concert scene was shifting again to Williamsburg.
The “outer” boroughs had a lively rock scene in the Super Seventies, utterly unwritten about these days. The top British and American bands in the world played The Ritz in Port Richmond, Staten Island, including the Kinks, Yes and Jethro Tull. For a time the Grateful Dead had a virtual residency in the Albee Theater in Borough Park, Brooklyn, playing matinee shows in what was temporarily called the 46th Street Rock Palace and later, Bananafish Gardens.
9/19/14