Tributes are pouring in from punk rock luminaries and Lower East Side neighbors for Jimmy Webb. The owner of I Need More at 75 Orchard St. and the longtime buyer for Trash & Vaudeville died of cancer earlier this week at the age of 62.
Webb was for years a fixture on St. Mark’s Place, where he went to work at Trash & Vaudeville in 1999, and later became manager. “With an eye for the perfect-fitting skintight jeans and authentic style,” wrote Rolling Stone, “he pulled together looks for punk rockers and pop stars alike, including outfitting everyone from the Ramones to Beyoncé and Justin Bieber.” Debbie Harry told the New York Post, “There goes a lovely unique NYC character. I feel lucky to have known him.” Henry Rollins added, “Jimmy Webb was one of the sweetest human beings I ever met.”
Webb opened his own store on lower Orchard Street in the fall of 2017, instantly making the block more interesting. The one-of-a-kind shop was a breath of fresh air in a gentrified neighborhood, where the cutting edge creative culture of the 80s and 90s is mostly just a memory. Earlier this year, Webb hosted an event “Footprints in February,” inside the store where Debbie Harry and Iggy Pop put their handprints and footprints in concrete.
In response to his passing, Iggy Pop said, “Jimmy was a ragged ray of sunshine in a world that’s getting darker.” In recent years, he noted, Webb, “dedicated his life to his store, ‘I Need More’, and to the people he collected through that theatre… and he was it’s star, gossiping, laughing, cackling but always encouraging and spotlighting what he thought was beautiful about the people and world around him.”
