Joan Jett, a very young Billy Idol, Pleasant Gehman (of the Screamin’ Sirens), and Theresa Kereakes’ roommates’ little sister. Photo credit: Theresa Kereakes

Joan Jett’s Runaways-era apartment on San Vicente Blvd. in L.A. is one of the ten homes of “countercultural icons” featured in Emily Temple’s recent Flavorwire photo compilation. She used two photos by Theresa Kereakes, including the one above. Kereakes was one of the major visual chroniclers, along with Jenny Lens, of the glam rock, punk rock, and New Wave scenes in southern California in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

Kereakes described Joan’s apartment as a major party location and gathering place:

Joan lived in the mint-green painted stucco two-story apartment building on San Vicente Blvd. right behind the Arco gas station on Sunset. A year after this photo was taken, I would move into the other famous West Hollywood apartment I inhabited: 1140 North Clark St. (Motley Crue would eventually move in downstairs; Lita Ford would be a frequent visitor). But before there were two party palaces on either side of the Whisky, Joan pretty much hosted them all.

There were always visits from punks Joan met on the road.

Runaways songwriter Kari Krome recalled some of the mischief Joan and her friends got into at the apartment:

The Runaways were just teenage girls. That’s what rock’n’roll’s about,” says Krome. “The hookers, at that time, were on Sunset down by Rodneys. Joan, [roadie] Kent [Smythe], and the rest — I think [manager] Scott [Anderson] may have been involved — would harass the hookers. You know, it was the stupid shit you do when you’re a kid for fun. Hose somebody down. Except you’re on Sunset with a seltzer bottle and a crazy tranny is chasing you. Bad girls, beep beep!

Other icons whose homes are featured then-and-now are Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, Janis Joplin, Andy Warhol (his Lexington and 89th apartment in New York), Steve McQueen, Jack Kerouac, Owsley “Bear” Stanley (of LSD fame), Kurt Cobain, Freddie Mercury, and Kurt Vonnegut.
 

The exterior today of Joan Jett’s onetime Sunset Strip apartment.
 
The Runaways live in Japan, 1977, below:

 
Via Flavorwire