Drugs, Dolls and Johnny Depp: The Viper Room’s demolition is the end of a Hollywood era
msn.comSunset Strip is a shadow of its former self. In the Sixties, the infamous two-mile stretch of Sunset Boulevard was the heart of Los Angeles’ emerging counterculture, a place where world-famous actors Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda joined young hippies in riots against a 10pm curfew.
Fast-forward to the Eighties and bands like Guns N’ Roses, Van Halen and Mötley Crüe were staying up long past their bedtimes as the area transformed into the whisky-soaked home of hair metal.
These days the counterculture is long gone and the bulldozers are circling. In February, the iconic former home of Tower Records, which went bankrupt in 2006, was torn down to make way for a new branch of skatewear brand Supreme.
Last month it was announced that The Viper Room, the rock’n’roll dive once owned by Johnny Depp, will soon be demolished and replaced with a 12-storey glass high-rise. “Just what the Strip needs!” jokes Steve Cohn, Depp’s former construction manager and a Viper Room regular in the Nineties. “There’s so much crap like that.
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