The Roxy — Covent Garden, London

The Roxy at 41-43 Neal Street in Covent Garden was the first dedicated punk venue in London — a former gay club that Andy Czezowski converted in late 1976 and opened on 1 January 1977, with the Clash headlining the opening night. For the next hundred nights, the Roxy was the centre of the London punk scene: the Sex Pistols, the Damned, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Wire, Generation X, X-Ray Spex, the Buzzcocks, the Slits, and virtually every significant first-generation punk act played there. The venue had a capacity of around 200, a sticky floor, and an atmosphere of barely controlled chaos that was documented on a live compilation album, 'The Roxy London WC2,' recorded during the first months of operation.

The significance of the Roxy in the formation of British punk is difficult to overstate. It gave the scene a physical home at the precise moment when the Sex Pistols' controversy was making punk a media phenomenon — a place where the bands could play, the audience could congregate, and the style, politics, and aesthetic of the movement could be defined in practice rather than theory. The venue was chaotic, poorly managed, and financially disastrous for Czezowski, who lost the club within months. It was taken over and continued operating under different management, but the founding period under Czezowski — roughly January to April 1977 — is the Roxy of legend.

The building in Neal Street has been used for various purposes since the Roxy's closure. Covent Garden itself was in a state of transition in 1977 — the fruit and vegetable market had recently closed and the area was being redeveloped — and the Roxy existed in a pocket of cheap, semi-abandoned space that would not survive the neighbourhood's gentrification. A blue plaque was installed at the site in later years to mark its significance to British music history. Neal Street is now a pedestrianised shopping street in one of London's most visited tourist areas.