The premiere after-party for the film National Lampoon's Animal House was held at the Village Gate on July 27, 1978.

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Located in a building built in 1898 as a flophouse for transient men, the Village Gate nightclub opened at the corner of Bleeker and Thompson in 1958.

The Village Gate was a popular jazz club for many years. John Coltrane, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, and many more played here. Aretha Franklin had her NYC debut at the Village Gate.

From 1971 to 1973, a musical comedy revue called National Lampoon's Lemmings had a successful run at the Gate. Starring John Belushi, Chevy Chase and Christopher Guest, the show lampooned the 1969 Woodstock Festival, calling it Woodchuck.

In 2001, the off-Broadway theater in the basement, the Village Theater, hosted a play based on Janis Joplin called Love, Janis.

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Janis Joplin used to spend time at this location as a teenager and young adult when it was a coffee house. The youths would drink coffee, listen to music and read poetry.

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After Janis finished high school, she attended Port Arthur College (where her mother worked as a the registrar) and earned a key punch certificate.

Joplin would go on to study at Lamar University in Beaumont and at the University of Texas in Austin as an art major. Port Arthur College became Lamar State College-Port Arthur.

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Originally opened in a former filling station on the north outskirts of Austin, Threadgill's boasted the first beer license in the county. Janis Joplin cut her teeth singing at this juke joint.

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