According to Daniel Gallant, the executive director of the Nuyorican Poets Society, 25% of the small arts venues that enliven the nyc scene and and above what any other city in the world can imagine, have closed down.
I noticed last year the passing of a personal favorite, Bowery Poetry Clun, nearly directly opposite the old CBGBs, a place I ventured into quite often in the past couple of years, had gone and that isn’t the only one: the Living Theater, the Red Room. And the Living Room have all passed on to a better place, as has 92Y Tribeca.
All of them not a victim of disinterest, as long as I’ve lived in nyc (ergo since 1979) there has been a strong underground arts scene: East Village Eye, the first publication I wrote for here, had a heavy heavy arts scene, and many of the writers doubled as performance artists. Fast forward 30 years and lo-fi hi-fi, digitized art damage spoken word, all that neat stuff is doing fine except rents are so extortionate in the city they are either moving to Brooklyn (like the Knitting Factory) or closing down.
Martin Amis once wrote that love is the last thing to die, but he is wrong: art is the last thing to die and now, how do we judge Athens? On the Pelopolessian War? Or on the architecture, philosophy and plays? In ten or a 100 years from now, no one will care about ancient politics. Who discusses Mayor Lindsay today in comparison to the amout of people who discuss the Velvet Underground.
We can’t afford to lose 25% of our venues and if we are paying so much money in taxes, why not send some to underwrite venues like the Nuyorican Poets Society. Do we want to be remembered as the city of the 32 ounce soda ban? Art is its own justification, so justify before any more places are shuttered up.