WBAI-NYC Upcoming Program

WBAI-FM Upcoming Program

Cat Radio Cafe

Tue, Dec 23, 2025 9:00 PM

POSITIVELY 4TH AND MERCER

POSITIVELY FOURTH AND MERCER: THE INSIDE STORY OF THE BOTTOM LINE

On tonight’s show, we’ll be joined by Allan Pepper and Billy Altman to discuss their new book, Positively Fourth and Mercer: The Inside Story of New York’s Iconic Music Club, The Bottom Line, with photographs by Peter Cunningham.

Allan Pepper’s career began in 1965 when her and childhood friend Stanley Snadowsky founded a nonprofit to increase awareness of jazz’s contribution to American culture. In 1974, the two young promoters realized a dream of opening their own Greenwich Village nightclub, the 400-seat Bottom Line, which forever changed the face of New York’s live music scene. The partners remained best friends until Snadowsky’s death in 2013, though remaining in the book every bit the presence that he was in life.

Billy Altman is a journalist, critic, and historian whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Rolling Stone and The Village Voice. A former senior editor of Creem, he has been a curator and scriptwriter for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the Grammy Museum, the National Blues Museum and the Naional Museum of African-American Music. He is a long time faculty member of The School of Visual Arts in New York.

Hosted by Janet Coleman and David Dozer