IT’S punk party time on the Bowery.

Just a week after the corner of Second Avenue and Bowery was renamed Joey Ramone Place, CBGB, the dingy rock club where the Queens punk rocker and his band honed their act, is celebrating its 30th anniversary.

Owner Hilly Kristal, now 72, was a musician himself – a singer mostly interested in classical music, opera, folk and jazz – when he opened CBGB (it stands for country, bluegrass and blues) in December 1973.

A former manager of the Village Vanguard jazz club, Kristal noticed that radio stations were playing country music and jukeboxes had blues, bluegrass, folk and country – and envisioned a successful club promoting such music.

Instead, CBGB became the center of punk rock, home to the Patti Smith Group, the Ramones, Television, the Talking Heads and Blondie.

“You were able to see great bands performing without the interference of the music industry,” said Andy Shernoff, guitarist with the Dictators, who first played at CBGB in 1975.

It all started when Kristal was hanging up the now-familiar awning at 315 Bowery. Three members of Television, Richard Hell, Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd, wandered by, and a few days later, their manager Terry Ork persuaded Kristal to give the new band a gig.

Kristal thought they were terrible, but Ork convinced him to let the Ramones play with Television at another gig – and the Ramones “were worse than Television,” recalls Kristal, “a mess.”

“The Ramones started very un-together,” he says. “It was a real chore until they got it.”

Still, he let the bands play on, giving them a live space to let them learn how to perform.

“You could see a band, and then be up onstage in a band in a week,” remembers Lenny Kaye, guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. “All those bands learned to play onstage, including myself.”

“It’s always nice to discover people and help others out,” Kristal says. “I like to see people doing their own thing in their own way.”

The only rule he had was that bands had to play their own music – no covers.

As the Bowery club became more popular for “new rock” musicians, who would basically perform for one another, the bands gradually improved – and eventually landed record deals.

“I even started to enjoy some of the music,” says Kristal.

In the 30 years since, CBGB – notorious for its dank bathroom and layers of posters and stickers on its walls – has hosted a range of bands including AC/DC, the Police, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Sonic Youth, the Cars and Pearl Jam. After the ’70s punk rockers, many bands from the ’80s hardcore scene settled there as well.

“Hilly Kristal did not sway his style with temporary trends,” says longtime New York DJ Meg Griffin, one of the first in town to spin punk rock artists.

“It became a rock of history because the Talking Heads, Patti Smith, the Ramones, Blondie, Tom Verlaine and Television, Richard Hell and The Voidoids, the Runaways and the Dictators made history there. Hilly made the stage available to them when few other venue owners would.”

Kristal, who used to live in back in the space which is now the dressing room, has cut his hours from about 100 hours a week to a 50-60 hour one. He doesn’t see as many bands as he used to, but the bands are still there – five play a night.

As for the club, it has expanded to a gallery next door for non-rock bands (pop bands and singer/songwriters), a lounge (which hosts freestyle jazz Sunday nights), a Web site, a burgeoning clothing line and a record label.

To celebrate the anniversary, the Dictators, who’ve been saving rock ‘n’ roll since 1973, will perform tonight along with the Fleshtones.

THOUGHT YOU KNEW EVERYTHING ABOUT CBGB?

* CBGB OMFUG stands for Country Bluegrass Blues; Other Music for Uplifting Gormandizers.

* More than 30,000 bands have performed there.

* In December 1973, the first bands to play there were the Con Fullum Band, from Maine, country folk artist Elly Greenberg, and a street group called the Wretched Refuse String Band.

* It took 15 years to pay off the sound system installed in 1977.

* CBGB’s first mascot was a dog – Kristal’s Saluki, Jonathan.

* David Byrne sang “Psycho Killer” for the first time on the CBGB stage.

* Living Colour played 34 Mondays in a row before it got signed by Epic Records.