Electric Circus (nightclub) - 1960s: Warhol and The Velvet Underground

1960s: Warhol and The Velvet Underground

By the 1960s, the bohemianism and nightlife previously associated with New York's Greenwich Village was growing in what would later be called the East Village. The Polish National Home was turned into the Dom Restaurant – the name came from the Polish for "home", derived from Polski Dom Narodowy ("Polish National Home") – with Stanley Tolkin's "Stanley's Bar" – where The Fugs played in the mid-1960s – downstairs, slightly below street level. Jackie Cassen and Rudi Stern began leasing the ballroom on the floor above Stanley's Bar for their "Theater of Light" show.

Then in 1966 artist Andy Warhol and Paul Morrissey – who directed many of Warhol's films, and who became a sometime manager of the Velvet Underground – sublet the ballroom from Cassen and Stern, and turned the Dom into a nightclub. The Velvet Underground was the house band, and their performances under Andy Warhol's influence were accompanied by many light effects with the added touches of projected movies and projected photographs, all going on at the same time. The experience was called the "Exploding Plastic Inevitable."