This summer I went to San Francisco, kids in tow. After Alcatraz and the Golden Gate Bridge, it's Haight-Ashbury that really sucks up the tourists in that California city. But unlike the first two sights, which can't help but awe you, a street corner in a neighbourhood really leaves you kind of cold. As in: what? This is it? This is the epicentre of 60's counterculture?

As hard as it is to believe, you finally have to surrender to the disappointment and remember that the best social movements are organic. The right conditions meet and magic brims over. And the not knowing and the not understanding is really the best part.

On the weekend another such landmark made the news: CBGB in New York. I never made it to the legendary club, known also as the Home of Rock n' Roll. Bands like the Ramones, Blondie, Black Flag and the Talking Heads all either broke on the stage or added to its mystique. Its logo is so familiar it has become a kind of Nike swish for non-sporty scenesters. The club is set to close on October 31 after 33 years of business.

Patti Smith played at the final show and refused to be nostalgic. It's not a temple, she said, it is what it is. And by all accounts that was a small, dumpy bar that just happened to be the place needed by the right people at the right time.

Soon people will be able to visit CBGB in Las Vegas. I'm not quite sure what people visiting will get from a faux club; maybe the t-shirt. What they won't get is that weird rush of excitement that hits if you stand still in these strange places for just a moment extra. Because it's then that you realize: if it could happen here, couldn't it happen anywhere?

That kind of thinking leads to revolutions.