The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue in the Polk Gulch neighborhood of San Francisco, California, at 1244 Sutter Street (or 1268 Sutter, depending on the entrance). The space is known as the location of many concerts of the counterculture movement, from around 1966 to 1969. It also had a reopening 34 years later, from 2003 to 2005. History The building that housed the Avalon Ballroom was constructed as a commercial building in 1911, designed by architect Alfred Henry Jacobs. By 1915, and at least until 1923, it housed a dance academy called "Puckett's College of Dancing", which one source described as "the home of refined dancing. A large turnout could be expected for such monthly events as peanut parties with peanuts and favors for all, a Serpentine Battle, and an informal indoor picnic party." By the 1930s, a public dance hall called the Avalon Ball Room had opened at 1268 Sutter Street, hosting "popular and old-fashioned dances" five times per week (according to the Federal Writers' Project guide to San Francisco). In the 1960s, Robert E. Cohen, impresario Chet Helms and his music production company, Family Dog Productions, which had offices on Van Ness, frequently booked bands to perform at the Avalon on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Posters advertising each event were produced by psychedelic artists, including Rick Griffin, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley and Victor Moscoso. A Liquid light show was often provided by "Diogenes Lantern Works." In the 1960s, at the Avalon, two bands typically performed two sets during the evening beginning at about nine o'clock. Many local bands, such as Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Steve Miller Band, served as backup bands, as did the early Moby Grape and headliners such as The Doors, the 13th Floor Elevators, the Butterfield Blues Band and Big Brother and the Holding Company, which Helms organized around singer and performer Janis Joplin in spring 1966. The Grateful Dead played at the Avalon twenty-nine times from 1966 through 1969, and recorded two live albums, entitled Vintage Dead and Historic Dead, in the autumn of 1966. 2 tracks of their "Live/Dead" album were also recorded there in early 1969, The Eleven and Turn On Your Love Light. On January 29, 1967, it hosted the Mantra-Rock Dance musical event, organized by the local Hare Krishna temple, which featured Hare Krishna founder Bhaktivedanta Swami, along with Allen Ginsberg, The Grateful Dead, Moby Grape and Big