New York Branch of Rock Hall of Fame Finally Gives Billy Joel Something to Do With All That Crap in His Garage

Rejoice, New Yorkers! No longer will Cleveland, Ohio, hold a monopoly on the world's most irrelevant cultural institution! At a Soho press conference yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg — flanked by music-industry legend Clive Davis and a Chevy once owned by Bruce Springsteen — announced that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame will open a 25,000-square-foot space on Mercer Street to "house temporary and traveling exhibitions from the Cleveland headquarters." No one was more excited than Billy Joel, who said he'd planned on donating a Mets jersey he'd been given at one of the Shea Stadium shows he played in July, but instead decided to contribute such priceless rock-and-roll artifacts as a baseball bat (see above) and some plaque from 2006 (celebrating his sold-out twelve-night run at Madison Square Garden or something). Manhattan's branch of the R&RHOF will open in November and is expected to feature lots more crap that Joel was previously keeping in storage behind his Christmas decorations.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Branches Out to New York [NYT]