Irving Plaza

Overview

Ballroom-style mid-size hall at the corner of Irving Place and East 15th Street, whose building predates the Civil War and whose life as a concert room (opened July 14, 1978 by Peppermint Lounge promoters Tom Goodkind and Frank Roccio) made it the first dedicated New York venue for punk and new wave before evolving into an evergreen stop for rock, hip-hop, and arena-level acts playing intimate sets.

The building at 17 Irving Place is one of the more layered in New York nightlife history: constructed in the 1860s as part of a row of brownstones later merged into a hotel, it was renovated by 1927 into a community hall that served (over the next five decades) as a Polish Army Veterans' home (Dom Polski, acquired by the Polish Army Veterans Association of America, District 2, in 1948), a folk-song venue where Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie ran People's Songs Hootenannies, a Yiddish theater, a burlesque house, and, in 1976, the stage from which Cardinal Karol Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II) addressed New York's Polish community. The building remains owned by the Polish Army Veterans Association of America; the concert operation is leased and run separately. On July 14, 1978, promoters Tom Goodkind and Frank Roccio (who would later run the Peppermint Lounge) converted the ballroom into a rock venue with a stated capacity of roughly 1,200. Within a year they were sharing booking duties with a 'Club 57' crew led by Jane Friedman and Louis Tropia, and the combined programming, B-52s, Talking Heads, the Ramones, Blondie, Motörhead, and a wave of British post-punk imports, established Irving Plaza as the city's premier room for punk and new wave. In November 1978 the venue hosted the 'New Wave Vaudeville' revue organized by SVA graduates Susan Hannaford and Tom Scully, the six-night variety showcase at which Klaus Nomi made his New York debut; Hannaford and Scully would shortly thereafter take over Club 57 on St. Mark's Place, weaving the two rooms into the same downtown art-punk circuit. The venue passed through several management changes over the 1980s. Chuck Terzella reopened it in October 1983 with English DJ Andy Dunkley handling music (reggae, college rock, an early no-video policy) before filing for bankruptcy in December 1985 and closing in June 1986. Chris Williamson, who promoted the Rock Hotel nights at the Ritz, invested $25,000 in fire-code upgrades and reopened in April 1987 with an inaugural multi-night stand by Big Audio Dynamite (documented on setlist.fm; David Bowie attended backstage); the venue closed again at the end of 1988 after the Ramones' December 31 final show. It reopened in the early 1990s under an exclusive booking arrangement with Ron Delsener's Delsener/Slater Enterprises, which cemented it as the city's developmental mid-size room, the proving ground where acts like the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Green Day, Dave Matthews Band, Beck, and Blur built New York audiences before graduating to arenas, and where established stars (Eric Clapton, U2, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney) returned for intimate sets. Live Nation, a Clear Channel spinoff, acquired operations and in April 2007 reopened the room as 'Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza,' reviving the brand of the Fillmore East (1968–1971). The name failed to stick; in June 2010 Live Nation restored 'Irving Plaza' citing 'unrelenting demand.' The venue closed in 2019 for a multi-million-dollar renovation that preserved its 19th-century ballroom bones (gold-tinged ceiling, U-shaped balcony, crystal chandeliers) while upgrading sightlines, the sound system, and backstage facilities. It reopened August 17, 2021 (reopening concert: Ashley McBryde). A May 25, 2016 shooting at a T.I. album-release event (one fatality, three injured) prompted renewed scrutiny of venue security across the industry.

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