7. Danceteria
Danceteria, a club that sent “shockwaves” through the 1980s party scene and helped launch the explosive careers of acts like Madonna and the Rolling Stones, left some New Yorkers shaken when a bomb shaped time capsule, planted by club promoters, was found at a lower Manhattan construction site. In July 2017, an item shaped like a bomb from World War II was unearthed by construction workers, causing the closure of a portion of 21st Street and the evacuation of nearby office buildings. NYPD bomb squad units were called to the scene where the innocuous capsule was buried in 1985.
Since the discovery, cartoonists James Romberger and Marguerite van Cook have claimed responsibility for the controversial stunt. Posters from the 1980s advertising the burial list its contents as, “Priceless Art for Posterity, Memorabilia from the Stars of the Scene, Trash of the Treacherous, Souvenirs Not Sold Anywhere.” According to van Cook’s Facebook page, some of the items enclosed in the bombshell are “one of Diana Ross’ fake eyelashes and Chi Chi Valenti’s g-string among thousands of messages to the future.” On October 25th, 1985 the capsule was buried in an alley adjacent to Danceteria with a sign reading, “To all you Futurists, 10 feet opposite this sign is a time capsule. Please open it in 10,000 years.”