Hurrah

Overview

New York's first 'rock disco', opened near Lincoln Center in November 1976 by Arthur Weinstein, with booking agent Ruth Polsky routing UK post-punk acts' first US dates, music-video monitors on the floor over a year before MTV launched, David Bowie's 'Fashion' filmed on-site, and Joy Division's booked US debut (May 21–23, 1980) cancelled when Ian Curtis died three days before the first date.

Hurrah opened in November 1976 at 36 West 62nd Street (months before Studio 54) created by promoter Arthur Weinstein (who would later open The World, The Jefferson, and The Continental) as what its management would call New York's first 'rock disco': a large dance room that replaced the era's dominant disco programming with punk, new wave, no wave, and industrial. Under successive managers Henry Schissler and then Jim Fouratt, and with Ruth Polsky as booking agent, Hurrah became the primary conduit for British post-punk acts' first American performances, the Cure, the Specials, the Slits, Bauhaus and Ultravox among them; American acts including Mission of Burma, and the New York-based Klaus Nomi, also played the room. Polsky maintained close working relationships with Factory Records and other UK independent labels, personally routing these tours into the room; her role has been documented in detail by Fouratt, who took over management after Schissler's departure. Hurrah pioneered the use of music-video screens as a live club element, placing monitors throughout the room more than a year before MTV's August 1, 1981 launch, a model later cited as a direct precursor to music television's aesthetic. David Bowie was filmed there in 1980 for the promotional clip for 'Fashion.' The club also hosted Klaus Nomi, a German countertenor who had surfaced in the East Village performance scene and would sing backup for Bowie on Saturday Night Live in December 1979. Two incidents at the club are widely recounted: in December 1978, during a Skafish performance, Sid Vicious attacked Todd Smith (Patti Smith's brother) in the club, an altercation that landed Vicious at Rikers Island for two months and accelerated his decline before his death in February 1979; in May 1980, Joy Division were booked for their first-ever US dates (May 21–23 at Hurrah), but Ian Curtis's suicide on May 18 cancelled the engagement. Hurrah closed in 1980 or early 1981; accounts differ on the date. The era's post-punk ferment migrated to Danceteria (opened 1980) and the Mudd Club. Ruth Polsky was killed on September 7, 1986, aged 31, outside the Limelight, where she had booked a Certain General record-release show and AIDS benefit: a livery car ran a red light and struck a taxi, which mounted the sidewalk and crashed into the club's entrance. Weinstein applied Hurrah's format to The World (254 East 2nd Street, c. 1982), a larger East Village room. Hurrah's in-house DJs included Sara Salir, Bill Bahlman and Anita Sarko, with Bart Dorsey credited in the club's later period. Hurrah's Lincoln Center address — 36 West 62nd Street, directly opposite the campus — placed it at geographic and social remove from the downtown rock scene centered in SoHo and the East Village; management is reported to have treated that distance as deliberate.