[Dixielandjazz] $$$$ Rule - Greenwich Village losing music venues.

[Steve barbone]

A sad commentary on the times. "The Village" was, like 52nd Street a
happening place in the halcyon days of of live jazz. The number of artists
of all genres, living there was incredible.

Nick's, Cinderella Club, Stuyvasent Casino, Central Plaza, Condon's, Jazz
Gallery, 5 Spot etc., etc., etc., where the likes of Monk, Coltrane,
Rollins, et al, played alongside the Condon Gang, Pee Wee Russell, Edmond
Hall, Wild Bill Davison, Cutty and Lou, Conrad Janis et al. All gone now,
because $$$$ rule.

I was lucky to have lived there in 1950s, while a working jazz musician and
University student. It is sad to see the essence of the place disappear.
Hard to imagine how a jazz, or other live music club can make it with a
rental of $40,000 a month. That's a huge nut. I guess you truly . . . "can't
go home again."

Cheers,
Steve Barbone  

The Sound of the Industry Priced Out
Live music venues in the Village wobble on their last legs
Village Voice  February 11th, 2005  alert me by e-mail

Why would people agree to pay astronomical rents to live in the new
apartment buildings and high-rises that are popping up all over the East
Village and the Lower East Side? One big selling point is the neighborhood's
world-class live music clubs‹except those same new buildings and high rents
are driving the clubs into extinction. Luna Lounge and Fez have both
announced that they're shutting down, at least for the moment, and the
future of Tonic and CBGB is in doubt.

Robb Sacher and Dianne Galliano co-own Luna Lounge, which is closing its
location on Ludlow Street at the end of this month. Their building has been
purchased by a developer who's reportedly planning to demolish several
one-story buildings to build a large apartment complex. Luna's owners would
eventually like to reopen the club nearby, and Sacher says their hopes are
pinned on a one-story building on Essex Street that's currently tied up in a
bankruptcy proceeding. "We really want to stay on the Lower East Side," he
says, "but there's absolutely no other building that's available to us, and
I've been looking for three years. Landlords don't want to rent
[non-residential buildings] to us; they want a 'triple A' tenant, like a
bank." 

Luna is currently paying $5,700 a month for 2,000 square feet‹an impossibly
low rate for Manhattan. So Sacher's also thinking about relocating to
Williamsburg: "We would really prefer to sell beer for $5 rather than $7,
which wouldn't be possible if we opened in Chelsea or the West Village."

Meanwhile, the owners of Lafayette Street's Time Café, in whose basement the
velvety, cabaret-style room Fez is located, have signed a new lease, and
decided to renovate the restaurant; they don't currently plan to reopen Fez.
The club's final show will be March 17: the Mingus Big Band, the first group
that ever performed there. "There aren't going to be that many spaces left
to do this kind of thing," says Ellen Cavolina Porter, Fez's booking agent
since it opened in 1992. "The economics of these rents and the size of these
spaces make it very challenging to try to make money."

It used to be a lot simpler. When Hilly Krystal started CBGB almost 32 years
ago, its monthly rent was $600. But CB's gradually made the Bowery chic, and
new ground-floor space on the legendary punk club's street now rents for
around $55 per square foot. Krystal's third lease ends this August; a new
lease would cost him somewhere between $38,000 and $40,000 a month, in
addition to the almost $80,000 a year he pays for liability insurance.

"I pay approximately $20,000 a month now‹I can't pay $40,000," Krystal says.
"I can't run the club at a deficit. We'd have to charge a lot more for
drinks, we'd have to charge a lot more for admission, and I don't know if
it's worth it to people. If it's gone, I don't see that anybody's going to
replace it. We're not a big moneymaking machine." He's thinking about trying
to continue, but also thinking about going elsewhere: "I know some people
want me to put CBGB in New Jersey, and some people in L.A. want me to move
out there." 

Down on Norfolk Street, Tonic is struggling to stay where it is right
now‹like Luna Lounge, it's in an old, one-story building in a neighborhood
that's rapidly growing taller. As the Voice reported last week, the club is
trying to raise $100,000 to survive in the face of flooding, a sewer-line
collapse, and a robbery, and it's scheduled a series of benefit performances
by artists including Yoko Ono, Vincent Gallo, and Devendra Banhart.

"Tonic's rent has doubled since we opened [in 1998], and our insurance has
tripled since 9-11," says co-owner Melissa Caruso Scott. "There's activity
on our block at night now, and I think our customers feel safer‹we used to
have rats like crazy on Norfolk Street, and I haven't seen a rat in two
years. But with that comes the challenge: Can we stay in this neighborhood?
Where artists used to be able to put on performances in their loft spaces,
now high-end restaurants want to move in. It certainly makes it harder to
present less-mainstream music. I'm hoping that we'll be able to work
something out and get back on track, but the worst-case scenario is that we
get evicted, and at some point we'll look for another space."

This isn't the first time a New York neighborhood has begun to price out the
clubs that helped shape its identity, Fez's Porter points out. "MacDougal
Street, where all those great folkies started, used to have a club every 30
yards. All the reasons that people used to have to want to live in the
Village don't really exist here any more. It's strange and sad to see it all
go, but it's going fast."