Tish and Snooky Bellomo have a story on just about anyone from the punk rock scene of the late 1970s in New York City.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne time Joey Ramone said to a friend of ours, \u2018You think you\u2019re so cool because you hang out with those Manic Panic girls,\u2019\u201d Tish Bellomo said of the late Ramones singer.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two sisters from the Bronx opened the nation\u2019s first punk rock boutique in 1977 on St. Mark\u2019s Place in the East Village. It was named Manic Panic by their mother Estelle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were selling the hair color, and Tish\u2019s original designs and some of my knitted sweaters and records and posters and fanzines and just everything we liked. Everything punk rock and rock and roll,\u201d Snooky Bellomo said of the shop.<\/p>\n
Almost 50 years later, Manic Panic lives on as an international hair color dye brand with more than 50 different colors.<\/p>\n
Tish and Snooky are the focus of an exhibition at the City Reliquary Museum and Civic Organization in Williamsburg. It\u2019s called \u201cStill Manic After All These Years: 50 Years of Manic Panic.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSo exciting, it\u2019s unbelievable, and we love this place. We love the City Reliquary. It\u2019s just the coolest place. I just want to live here,\u201d Snooky said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tish agreed. \u201cThe minute we walked in, we knew we have to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pair have also performed as singers all these years, including as part of the early lineup of Blondie. Debbie Harry\u2019s platform shoes are part of the exhibit, a nod to their time with the group.<\/p>\n
Curator Lee Berman dove into Tish and Snooky\u2019s archives to put the show together.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are photos from before they opened up the shop, all the different moves they’ve done, all the different bands they played in, their famous friends. They were at the center of a lot of different things,\u201d Berman said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tish and Snooky say this is something they never could have imagined when they started making the trip down from the Bronx to be part of the Lower Manhattan scene in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe never would have believed it and you know we were advised actually not to become international. We had advisers, and they would tell us oh no, there was enough business here. We said no, we want to travel. We want to you know, spread the word. We want to go international, and we did. We never listen to anyone,\u201d Tish said.<\/p>\n