285 Kent

Overview

All-ages DIY warehouse run by Todd P from 2010 to 2014, with Ric Leichtung (AdHoc) booking in its later years, hosting Frank Ocean, Odd Future, DJ Rashad, and Grimes; it closed in January 2014, months before Vice Media's takeover of the building displaced its neighbors Death by Audio and Glasslands.

285 Kent opened in 2010 at the waterfront end of Kent Avenue in Williamsburg, occupying a unit in a large industrial building that had previously housed Bohemian Grove (an underground electronic music venue) and Paris/London/West Nile (a live-work performance-arts loft operated by the Shinkoyo collective, 2006–2010, which also founded the original Silent Barn as the Raven's Den). Todd Patrick (known as Todd P, a leading all-ages promoter) founded 285 Kent and ran it initially alone before entering a booking partnership with Ric Leichtung, whose event-promotion and music-media entity AdHoc.fm booked the venue in its later years. The room held approximately 400 standing and enforced an all-ages, affordable-ticket policy; Patrick and Leichtung explicitly aimed to broaden the DIY audience beyond what they described as its historically white and privileged composition. Programming was unusually broad: Titus Andronicus and Parquet Courts played early shows; Frank Ocean and the rest of Odd Future turned up at a free afterparty on July 26, 2012 (Tyler, the Creator reportedly hung from a ceiling pipe); DJ Rashad and other Chicago footwork acts were booked; Grimes, Blood Orange, Mykki Blanco, and Autre Ne Veut all performed. A queer club night reportedly called TOP 8 was among the recurring parties. The same large building also housed Death by Audio and Glasslands Gallery, both displaced later in 2014 when Vice Media took over the building for its headquarters expansion; 285 Kent's own closure, in Todd P's account to The FADER, was a decision to leave before being shut down, with a landlord unwilling to extend the lease and mounting attention from authorities. The closure drew coverage from The FADER, the Village Voice, Bedford + Bowery, and others, and was treated as a symbolic end of the early-2010s Williamsburg DIY scene. 285 Kent closed in January 2014; Death by Audio followed in November 2014 and Glasslands Gallery played its final show on December 31, 2014, as Vice Media completed its building takeover. DJ Rashad, the Chicago footwork producer who had performed at 285 Kent, died on April 26, 2014, at age 34, three months after the venue's closure.