Bossa Nova Civic Club

Overview

The 140-capacity basement room beneath the Myrtle–Wyckoff M/L subway overpass that became Bushwick's most durable underground anchor, a legally-licensed, anti-pretension techno and house club opened in December 2012 by former 285 Kent promoter John Barclay, described by regulars and a New Yorker profile as 'techno Cheers': queer-adjacent, cheap, and fog-filled, and still open after a 2022 building fire nearly closed it for good.

Bossa Nova Civic Club opened in December 2012 in a defunct party hall at 1271 Myrtle Avenue, wedged beneath the Central Avenue M-train stop in Bushwick. Its founder, John Barclay, a former advertising coordinator turned rave promoter who had co-run the unlicensed 285 Kent warehouse in Williamsburg (raided by NYPD Vice Squad, 2010) and the 10,000-square-foot 'Trip House' mansion in deep Bushwick, spent more than a year securing investors and navigating licensing, explicitly positioning Bossa Nova as a rebuke to what he called 'the Cracker Barrelization and Portlandification of Brooklyn nightlife.' The roughly 140-capacity room (tropical-themed: banana-leaf wallpaper, backlit liquor bottles, black leather banquettes, heavy fog, minimal lighting) offers free entry most nights, an affordable door otherwise, and a posted code ('No racism, no sexism, no homophobia, no transphobia, no violence') that General Manager Ed Thompson described as the club's 'blueprint to this dive-bar club thing.' Early programming leaned into L.I.E.S. Records and its orbit: Steve Summers and Bookworms held residencies in the first years; Aurora Halal (Mutual Dreaming) and Marcos Cabral were early regulars; the club collaborated with Sisterjam to release the 2014 twelve-inch compilation 'Bushwick Is Melting' (featuring Halal, Cabral, Jacques Renault, Mark Verbos, and DUST). The room's sustained queer programming includes the multi-year residency 54FACETIME, described as championing 'queer-centered techno and community feels,' and Ann-Marie Teasley's 'Realms of Techno' series centering queer and femme DJs alongside Detroit-lineage and harder sounds. A New Yorker profile cited Bossa as a rare venue 'where social mixing happens, queer and straight, younger and older,' a characterization its regulars shortened to 'techno Cheers.' Barclay was a vocal participant in the multi-year campaign to repeal New York City's 1926 Cabaret Law, calling it 'an absurd, antiquated, racist, dangerous law,' and Bossa Nova (which operated without a cabaret license throughout) was among the venues most affected by MARCH Task Force enforcement sweeps; the repeal was signed by Mayor de Blasio in 2017. On the night of January 12, 2022, a fire broke out in a third-floor apartment of the building; the fire did not reach the ground-floor club, but water damage was extensive. A GoFundMe campaign raised over $113,000 for displaced staff, bar tenants, and repairs. While Bossa Nova was shuttered, Barclay and Thompson opened Paragon (April 2022) in Bed-Stuy, relocating displaced Bossa staff there temporarily. Bossa Nova Civic Club quietly reopened in early October 2022 (roughly nine months after the fire) with an unannounced party headlined by Juliana Huxtable, BEARCAT, Honey Dip, and Devoye; a line stretched around the block by 9 p.m.

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