It’s curtains for the Music Hall of Williamsburg. The iconic venue will close its doors in 2026.
In an internal memo first reported by Variety, the venue’s operator, Bowery Presents, said the owners of 66 North 6th St. have opted not to renew the Hall’s lease, which expires at the end of 2026. A representative for Bowery Presents confirmed the veracity of the memo for Brooklyn Paper.
“We will continue to produce shows at Music Hall throughout next year, making each moment count for rising talent and returning stars, ensuring the legacy of this venue and its impact on both the neighborhood and music overall is secured in history,” Bowery Presents co-owners Jim Glancy and John Moore said in the memo.
But what comes next isn’t quite clear. A Bowery Presents spokesperson did not say whether the venue would work to find a new location after 2026 or shutter permanently.
The venue was initially founded as Northsix in 2001. After a rent hike, Bowery Presents took over and renovated the space in 2007, reopening it as the larger, more polished Music Hall of Williamsburg.
Glancy and Moore said they arrived in Williamsburg while the neighborhood was in the midst of a “cultural awakening,” and was “among the first music venues to open in the neighborhood and establish tenure.” Today, the nabe is home to a number of small but popular venues, including National Sawdust, Brooklyn Steel and Brooklyn Bowl.
Since then, the Hall has hosted dozens of up-and-coming artists who went on international stardom. In the memo, Glancy and Moore said the venue had welcomed Mumford and Sons, Tame Impala, St. Vincent, Ed Sheeran, Tyler, The Creator, Brandi Carlile, The xx, The Weeknd, Robyn and many more at the start of their careers, before they were launched to fame.
“In addition, we saw some of Bowery’s own staff begin their careers at Music Hall and make the move to larger stages and productions,” Glancy and Moore said.
The pair said they were grateful for the time they had spent on North 6th Street and for the staff who operated the venue.
“And as always, our passion for identifying new and exciting places for artists and fans to experience the transcendental power of live music will continue, as it has since we first crossed the bridge two decades ago,” they said in the memo. “Music Hall of Williamsburg is a special place to all of us at Bowery. Let’s make our final year on North 6th Street one to remember.”
The owner of 66 North 6th St., real estate investment firm Asana Partners, sold the building earlier this year, per the New York Post. City records do not yet reflect the sale or who the building was sold to, though they do indicate that Asana fulfilled mortgage payments on the property earlier this year.
