Neighborhood Punk Icon Jimmy Webb Loses Battle with Cancer (RIP)

Posted on: April 15th, 2020 at 5:00 am by

Jimmy Webb, the flamboyant punk whose Lower East Side boutiques captured the essence of rock and roll, passed away yesterday morning after a battle with stomach cancer.

He was 62, and had apparently been fighting the disease for a couple years. No official statement had been made about his death.

Messages are pouring in about Jimmy Webb, a local fashion icon who had seen it all.

In 1975, Webb ran away from his upstate home at age 16 with a pillowcase of clothes and no money. But he quickly settled and found refuge in the East Village punk scene, becoming one of its most recognizable denizens. Webb later fell into heroin addiction for 20 years and lived in Tompkins Square Park, eventually returning upstate.

He got sober, though, and wrote a letter to the owner of Trash & Vaudeville on St. Mark’s Place, seeking a job. That stint lasted nearly two decades, in which he became manager and primary buyer.

Many in the East Village neighborhood knew Webb, and even the stylists of Prince and Lady Gaga purportedly sought his wardrobe advice.

Three years ago, after leaving Trash & Vaudeville, Webb opened the spiritual successor, I Need More at 75 Orchard Street.

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