Painted across the facade of 9 Bleecker are faded letters spelling out "The Yipster Times" & "Bleecker Street Publishing." Those words bear witness to another role for the building, as the group's editorial offices from 1973 to 1989. The Yipster Times, known after 1979 as Overthrow, was published monthly and served as the Yippie house organ.

For many years, the Yippies have run 9 Bleecker as a portal into New York for wandering musicians & political firebrands, and as a temporary crash pad for residents of the East Village.

9 Bleecker continues to be home to unusual causes. Few topics have received as much of Dana Beal's energy as ibogaine, a substance derived from a West African shrub, that he has championed as a tool to fight addiction to heroin & other drugs.

Wherever the ibogaine crusade leads, the role of 9 Bleecker as a war room for countercultural causes may be in peril. Mr. Beal has also solicited letters of support for a continued Yippie presence at 9 Bleecker from a variety of acquaintances, among them Paul Krassner, the satirist & founding editor of The Realist, the political magazine.

"No. 9 was a community center for humane projects ignored by the mainstream," said Mr. Krassner, an original Yippie who coined the name Youth International Party. "It's a psychedelic relic from a bygone era that proves that you can fight City Hall."