Dead venues: 9 great music spots lost to history
But kept alive in memory (and sometimes condos)
The Cotton Club
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The nightlife business isn't an easy one. Venues open and close with a frequency and velocity that's only matched by the boom-and-bust cycle of the average rock 'n' roll act, and a popular club today might be a real estate liability tomorrow—or even worse, a has-been. That makes the re-invention of the Knitting Factory all the more exciting. Located until recently in Tribeca, the club re-opened last month in Williamsburg, a move that works as a symbol of New York music's shifting geographies. In advance of The A.V. Club's party at the new Knitting Factory tomorrow(Saturday, Oct. 24)—featuring Obits, Screaming Females, JEFF The Brotherhood, and complimentary beer from Brooklyn Brewery—here are nine venues that once graced us with their stages, but, alas, do no more.
The Cotton Club
The address: 142nd Street and Lenox Avenue (Harlem)
The reign: 1923-1940
The story: During Prohibition and the years that followed, The Cotton Club was one of the hippest clubs in New York, a Harlem hangout where hepcats could drink beer, schmooze with gangsters, bootleggers, and celebrities, and, most importantly, hear the best black music in the city. Count Basie, Ella Fitzgerald, and Bessie Smith all played there regularly, and Duke Ellington wrote some of his most important work while serving as the house bandleader. It's also remembered these days as an emblem early 20th-century racism: Musicians there were encouraged to amplify their “blackness” with jungle-themed costumery and sets, and the audience was white-only.
What it is now: The Minisink Townhouse, a community center of the New York Mission Society. The Cotton Club reopened in 1978 and currently resides at 656 W. 125th St.
The Village Gate
The address: Thompson and Bleecker Street (Greenwich Village)
The reign: 1958-1993
The story: A mainstay of Greenwich Village back when the area still had hippies kicking around, The Village Gate was eclectic in the manner of its namesake neighborhood. Thelonius Monk recorded Live At The Village Gate there in 1963, and National Lampoon put on a 1973 stage show starring unknowns like John Belushi, Chevy Chase, and Christopher Guest. Then there were any number of folkies, cabarets, and experimental-theater performances.
What it is now: The ground floor is a CVS, but the basement-level theater was re-invented last year as the current club Le Poisson Rouge.
Fillmore East
The address: E. 6th Street and 2nd Avenue (East Village)
The reign: 1968-1971
The story: Bill Graham was a storied West Coast promoter who helped launch the careers of pretty much every psychedelic rock act to emerge in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s. His legendary San Francisco club, The Fillmore, was the premier showcase for the subversive—and wildly popular—sounds of the era, so it seemed only appropriate to open a New York outpost. The club didn’t last all that long, but it certainly went out in style: For the final show, Graham threw a private bash with performances from The Allman Brothers, J. Geils Band, Mountain, and The Beach Boys.
What it is now: A branch of Emigrant Savings Bank.
Studio 54
The address: 54th Street and 8th Avenue (Theater District)
The reign: 1977-1986
The story: No other spot is more synonymous with disco-era flamboyance than Studio 54, which brought together the rich, the fashionable, the musical, and the regular folks who managed to penetrate the long lines outside the club. Inside was a swirling mix of sex and stimulants, tempered only slightly by the finest performers of the day: Donna Summer and The Village People, to be sure, but also avant-garde acts like Arthur Russell. Always under suspicion by the authorities—not least because owners Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager were world-class sketchballs, of a sort prone to hiding cocaine in the walls—the club closed in 1980 and Rubell and Schrager went to jail, although the club continued under new management until 1986.
What it is now: A theater owned by the Roundabout Theatre Company.
Palladium
The address: 14th Street and 3rd Avenue (East Village)
The reign: 1971-1998
The story: A prominent rock venue in the ‘70s and early ‘80s—it helped pick up the slack from the closure of the Fillmore East—Palladium achieved notoriety when, in 1985, Studio 54’s Steve Rubell converted it into a nightclub. Rubell quickly sold it to infamous club owner Peter Gatien, who made it one of the mainstays of “club kid” culture in the early ‘90s. That meant lots of drugs and general outrageousness, like Junior Vasquez’s Dolce & Gabbana-designed DJ booth, and a fair amount of controversy, particularly after club kid Michael Alig was convicted of murder in 1996 (a story that’s told in the film Party Monster). Palladium closed in 1998, and soon after the property was sold to New York University.
What it is now: An NYU dormitory, also called Palladium, with a Trader Joe’s on the ground floor.
Paradise Garage
The address: King and Varick Street (Soho)
The reign: 1976-1987
The story: The history of disco, while often fixated on the big places where Bianca Jagger went, played out even more interestingly at smaller clubs around the city. Paradise Garage was a premier one of those, a downtown with a big gay following and a resident DJ, Larry Levan, who counts as a big-time legend these days. Levan was one of the most adventurous disco DJs and was taken as something like a god by those who flocked to hear who swooning, swelling sets. Keith Haring went there a lot, too, which doesn't exactly hurt in terms of brewing NYC mystique.
What it is now: A Verizon facility.
Wetlands Preserve
The address: Hudson and Laight Street (Tribeca)
The reign: 1989-2001
The story: Wetlands occupied a curious niche in clubland, a fact that made its eventual closure a matter of great lamentation for devotees. The Tribeca nightspot catered to the jam-band scene, and pretty much all the major players dropped by during the club’s 12-year run. But Wetlands was always more than a granola magnet: The owners insisted on an ethos of environmental stewardship and sustainability long before people cared about stuff like that, and the place became a home away from home for folks who found New York rather hostile to Jerry Garcia and all he hath wrought.
What it is now: Condos (You can buy one for a few million dollars.) But one of Wetlands’ former owners, Peter Shapiro, recently opened Brooklyn Bowl, the LEED-certified bowling alley/restaurant/concert venue in Williamsburg.
Tonic
The address: Norfolk and Delancey Street (Lower East Side)
The reign: 1998-2007
The story: Tonic was an outpost for weird and adventurous music that swung from avant-garde jazz to noise to rock to, well, pretty much anything. John Zorn was affiliated at the start, and the homey space on the Lower East Side became the kind of place you could just wander into and be pretty sure you'd hear something interesting. Some early Animal Collective shows happened there, and the on-going weekly techno party got its start in the great basement space there, complete with huge old wooden wine-making casks cut down and fashioned into seating circles.
What it is now: For rent.
McCarren Pool
The address: Driggs and Lorimer Street (Williamsburg)
The reign: 2006-2008
The story: When researchers look back at Williamsburg’s historical trajectory—industrial neighborhood, artistic enclave, nexus of cool, condo city—they’ll have to dedicate some time to McCarren Pool. The basin was built during the New Deal, shuttered in 1984, and found new life as a summer concert venue during the final days of our most recent economic boom. Shrouded by half-built high-rises and surrounded by all manner of corporate sponsorship, neighborhood locals took in the indie sounds of the day, played dodgeball, and collectively embodied the image of the “hipster” in the popular imagination.
What it is now: Under construction to become a pool again.
