Neighborhoods grow up and so do clubs

More evolution in the NYC club scene.

Having clubs fit a neighborhood does make sense if you want locals to drop in.

If your core audience has been pushed out by higher rents, or if they have changed lifestyles to afford to stay, the old clubs may not have anyone left to serve.

Still, if people are moving into the neighborhood because they like what's already there, then it's probably a loss for everyone when a club moves or changes.

Polishing the Grunge - New York Times: Northsix, "which was one of the first of a wave of music places to open in Brooklyn, and an early hub in the Williamsburg music scene in the heady days when bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs were becoming famous, is getting ready to close — sort of. It is scheduled to shut for an extensive renovation at the end of January and reopen a few months later as the Music Hall of Williamsburg, owned by the Bowery Presents, the company that puts on music shows at the Bowery Ballroom, the Mercury Lounge and Webster Hall, all in Manhattan.

"Williamsburg is not losing a rock club, then, but gaining one that may be more suited to its current state of gentrification, to the 40-story condos being planned along the East River nearby. Where Northsix has distressed, paint-caked wood floors and rudimentary high-school-style risers, the Music Hall will have balconies and a big-city gloss."


The article points out that "Jeff Steinhauser, still in his 20s and armed with his inheritance money," who leased the space that became Northsix "will have a job in the management of the new club." He's a good example of how younger club goers sometimes outgrow their clubs. "'It’s weird,' he said. 'But you know, the way the neighborhood is changing, I don’t know that a place like this necessarily fits in with what the neighborhood is changing to.'”


live music
clubs
music scene