Positively Fourth and Mercer: The Inside Story of New York’s Iconic Music Club, The Bottom Line

In 1974, when young music promoters Allan Pepper and Stanley Snadowsky opened their night club the Bottom Line in an industrial area of Greenwich Village that was all but deserted after 6 pm, no one could have foreseen either its long-term success or its impact on the musical and cultural landscape of New York City. Over the next thirty years, while trends and tastes came and went, the Bottom Line throughout its fabled history remained true to its co-founders' profoundly simple vision: that if you presented entertainers in an intimate setting where the focus would always be on what transpired onstage, both artists and audiences would treasure the experience.
That vision would ultimately translate to, literally, thousands of magical evenings and events featuring both icons and up-and-comers from across the music universe. As the performers, patrons and staffers who passed through its doors all agree, the Bottom Line realized its founders vision as no New York music club, before or after, ever would.
The story of the Bottom Line is the tale of childhood friends who turned their shared dream into a reality – and, through determination, hard work, and, most of all, a belief in each other, made entertainment history, and memories, to last a lifetime. Told by co-founder Allan Pepper and award-winning music journalist Billy Altman, as well as scores of on and offstage participants whose exploits helped create its lasting legacy, Positively Fourth and Mercer: The Inside Story of New York's Iconic Music Club, The Bottom Line is certain to appeal to anyone interested in music, show business and the inner and outer workings of a legendary club that defined its time in the firmament of New York City nightlife. Positively Fourth and Mercer is about a time and place. It is a love story about friendship, romance, and following a dream.

Peter Cunningham is a professional photographer who loves the work he is privileged to be doing. His teachers include Baptist fisherman Lester Tate, French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, Zen Master Bernie Glassman and singer-songwriter Janis Ian. Peter has exhibited his photographs and films in New York, Krakow, London, Paris, Tokyo, Jerusalem, Kigali, Nanjing, Beijing, Berlin and Grand Manan, Canada. His clients include singers, teachers, chefs, playwrights, athletes, accountants, actors, fishermen and clowns. He has taught “Photography as Zen Practice” in China, and is co-author with Peter Matthiessen of “Are We There Yet? A Zen Journey through Space and Time.” Peter's first paid job was to make Bruce Springsteen's Columbia Records pictures in 1973, he joined the staff of The Bottom Line in 1974, and in 1982 made Madonna's first publicity pictures. He is currently working on books about sculpture, children, history, values, language, and juxtaposition.
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