Coney Island High

Overview

Three-floor East Village rock club opened in 1995 by Jesse Malin (with Howie Pyro closely associated), which grew out of the Green Door NYC party. It booked punk, metal and alternative acts until a closure that sources date to 1999 (one says 2000) and attribute variously to eviction for condo redevelopment and to cabaret-law enforcement.

Coney Island High grew out of Green Door NYC, the party whose first edition was held on New Year's Eve 1991 at Giorgio Gomelsky's Chelsea loft (Village Voice). Malin co-hosted it with Holly Ramos, and Howie Pyro co-founded it (Village Voice; Pyro's own interview in Voyage LA). Empire State of Live says the club began as Green Door NYC, a weekly party that played punk and metal, and describes Malin as a co-owner. Stomp and Stammer says Malin used money from D Generation's Columbia Records deal to open the club; in the Village Voice Malin writes that he used 'some money from our second record deal'. Pyro's exact ownership role is not established in the sources read; he is described as its DJ and unofficial ambassador. At 15 St. Marks Place, the three-floor club booked punk, metal and alternative acts (Empire State of Live). The main floor reportedly held about 500 people (Empire State of Live). Iggy Pop, the Ramones, the Beastie Boys, Rancid, Social Distortion, the Misfits, the Damned, Queens of the Stone Age and the Mighty Mighty Bosstones are among the acts reported to have played the room (Empire State of Live; Stomp and Stammer). Wikipedia says No Doubt gave their first New York City performance there in November 1995. Malin, in Stomp and Stammer (2021), also says 'No Doubt played their first New York gig there,' and the band's own tour archive lists 11/3/1995 at Coney Island High as its only New York date that year (its 1993 and 1994 archives list no New York dates). Joey Ramone held birthday shows at the club (Empire State of Live), including a bash on June 16, 1999 (ramonesheaven.com). Jesse Malin, writing in the Village Voice in 2022, called Howie Pyro his 'unofficial ambassador, DJ, and troublemaker.' The club's end is disputed in the sources, and they also differ on the year: Empire State of Live and Wikipedia give 1999, and Stomp and Stammer says it closed in 2000. Malin told Stomp and Stammer that the club was hit under the 'cabaret laws' for dancing and shut down several times until the owners 'couldn't pay the fines anymore'; in the Village Voice he wrote that it was 'closed down for dancing by Mayor Giuliani'. (Wikipedia says the Cabaret Law was passed in 1926 and that Giuliani used it in the late 1990s.) A 2014 retrospective (Empire State of Live) says it closed by eviction for a condominium project, and rejects the cabaret-law explanation. Empire State of Live says a condominium was built on the site, with a sushi store at street level. Malin had already opened Niagara in 1997 with Johnny T. Yerington and Laura McCarthy, in the space of the former punk club A7 (Niagara's history page). Stomp and Stammer says he became a co-owner of the Bowery Electric; it gives no date.