Good Room

Overview

Greenpoint club for underground electronic music since 2014: two rooms (a main floor and the vinyl-lined 'Bad Room'), a d&b Audiotechnik system Mixmag has named among ten venues audiophiles should visit, and a booking calendar built on long-running residencies.

Good Room opened just before Halloween 2014 in the shell of Club Europa, a Polish-American discotheque that had long served Greenpoint's immigrant working-class nightlife at 98 Meserole Avenue. Owner Greg Brier reportedly named the space on the spot ('It's a good room') and handed programming to Josh Houtkin, who had co-founded the downtown party FIXED with Dave Pianka at the Tribeca Grand Hotel in 2004 and brought that DFA-adjacent sensibility to Brooklyn. Veteran club designer Steve Lewis (Marquee, Butter) shaped two interconnected floors: the main 'Good Room,' anchored by a DJ booth, disco ball, and dance floor, and the 'Bad Room,' a smaller space lined with a wall of vinyl records, running a house-focused second system. The room was positioned as a hybrid of licensed nightclub and Greenpoint local bar, with drinks around $5 and a door rarely above $20. The sound system was upgraded in approximately 2016–2017 when Oxygen Eventworks installed a permanent d&b Audiotechnik system in the main room, 'a game changer,' Houtkin said. Mixmag later listed Good Room among ten venues 'self-respecting audiophiles should visit', calling it 'an East Coast favourite, beloved for its inclusive parties and top-notch d&b Audiotechnik system.' The booking calendar Houtkin built drew from overlapping worlds: disco-influenced house (Justin Strauss & Billy Caldwell, Kim Ann Foxman's monthly Firehouse), trans-Atlantic techno (Martyn, Vladimir Ivkovic, Jennifer Cardini, Lena Willikens), nu-disco (Quantic, Morgan Geist / The Juan Maclean via DFA), and the harder underground (The Bunker's techno axis, Willie Burns). The Carry Nation (Nita Aviance and Will Automagic) established one of the room's most culturally significant residencies, bringing high-energy New York house, acid, and voguing-adjacent programming to what the Red Bull Music Academy Daily in 2017 called the revival of New York's 'gay big room.' Octo Octa and Eris Drew played their first-ever set together here in 2018 under the T4T LUV NRG banner, reportedly splitting proceeds with the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. Good Room weathered the COVID-19 shutdown with an 18-month closure; the club is reported to have applied for a Save Our Stages grant and been turned down. During the hiatus the team hosted Twitch livestreams with NYC DJs, splitting revenue with artists, and maintained the membership program. It fully reopened in September 2021, and Greenpointers reported a members-only tenth-anniversary party in February 2024 with free beer, pizza, and personalized membership cards. As of mid-2026, it remains an active anchor of the Greenpoint underground, operating alongside Nowadays, Bossa Nova Civic Club, and Public Records; The Lot Radio, the community station on the nearby Williamsburg/Greenpoint border, sits within the same cultural geography. 98 Meserole Avenue's transition from Club Europa—a Polish-American discotheque that served Greenpoint's working-class immigrant community for decades—to Good Room in 2014 tracks a specific moment in the neighborhood's demographic shift: Club Europa operated in a Greenpoint that was majority Polish-immigrant; Good Room opened in a Greenpoint undergoing rapid gentrification driven by L-train spillover from Williamsburg and proximity to the waterfront. The Bad Room, the smaller of Good Room's two interconnected floors, runs a simultaneous but separate program—a second DJ, a second system, lower capacity—allowing the venue to serve different audience sizes and sonics under one roof without a formal partitioned layout. Good Room's annual membership program, maintained without interruption through the pandemic closure and subsequent reopening, provides priority entry and access to member-only events. The club has operated under continuous independent ownership since 2014 at the same 98 Meserole Avenue address.