What was once the piss-stained incubator of New York punk at 315 the Bowery New York, has now been re-invented as a John Varvatos boutique. CBGB OMFUG launched the careers of bands like Blondie, the Ramones and Sonic Youth. Now it promises to launch Varvatos' rock-inspired couture to the New York public.

Before you get too upset about the historical venue being turned into a boutique, Varvatos has an element cred. He has dressed Iggy Pop and Slash, and is a favourite of Alice Cooper. He also also dressed Ryan Adams, but we won't mention that to anyone else if you don't. The Detroit designer also does his own version of Converse Chuck Taylor's, including these pre-muddied ones that look like a vintage post-CBGB pair straight off the feet of Dee Dee Ramone.

Varvatos has retained much of the club's interior in its current re-incarnation. The inch-deep band posters stay, as does the graffiti, the aged ventilation system and band stickers. Arturo Vega, who created the Ramones logo, has lent much Ramones memorabilia.  Varvatos himself much of his own rare and imported vinyl records and autographed Stratocasters on display too.

The club's former owner Hilly Kristal packed up the club's fixtures before he passed away from lung cancer in August last year with the intention of re-opening a CBGB club elsewhere. He had battled bitterly with the landlord to keep the club open. And despite the efforts of fans and bands around the workd the club which opened in 1973 finally closed it doors. His daughter Lisa Kristal Burgman is left with the plans, and a storage vault full of pissed-strained urinals.

The 70s punk boom is gone, and to many the Ramones, Television, Blondie, Talking Heads, Bad Brains and Sonic Youth, Richard Hell and the Voidoids and nothing more than cute retro band T-shirts to go with skinny jeans and clever hair. For those who were there at the time, CBGB will never fade, it will live on in addled, smoke-hazed brewery-breathed memories forever. If you missed it, or you were too young to have been there, you can pop into 315 the Bowery for an inkling of what it was like.