There was a time before glass towers dotted the Williamsburg waterfront that opening a rock club in the ’hood was a good bet. For a while, the edgy local scene supported a number of big venues, including Volume, Northsix and Galapagos, just to name a few.
Now that Volume and Northsix have closed and Galapagos has been priced out of the area, and many local rockers have moved out or moved on, what will become of the bourgeois bohemian swath of land that was once home to them all?
On Sept. 4, Bowery Presents, a Manhattan-based nightclub group that runs the Bowery Ballroom and Mercury Lounge, will find out when it opens the Music Hall of Williamsburg in the former Northsix space at 66 N. Sixth Street.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for Williamsburg” Michael Swier, a partner in Bowery who predicts that 80 percent of the space’s audience will be from the neighborhood, told GO Brooklyn. “We’ve identified [the neighborhood] as a hotbed for indie music where many musicians and people who work in our venues live.”
The opening night concert will feature Patti Smith (pictured), the rock icon who also plays a yearly show at the Bowery Ballroom. The rest of the venue’s schedule hasn’t been announced yet, but it’s doubtful that boldfaced names like Smith will be playing every night. Swier told us that although it “took a while” to get the space off the ground, Bowery isn’t planning on giving up on its investment any time soon.
