Saint Vitus

Overview

Greenpoint's definitive heavy-music bar and 250-cap room, opened April 2011 in a 1931 building that once housed a social club and a plumbing school, shut by the NYC Department of Buildings mid-show in February 2024 after a campaign of 311 complaints, and permanently closed August 2024, for thirteen years the city's central room for metal, punk, and hardcore.

Saint Vitus opened April 11, 2011 at 1120 Manhattan Avenue in north Greenpoint (then still the unglamorous, industrial fringe of the neighborhood) in a 1931 building that had been a members-only social club (a kind of post-Prohibition speakeasy) and, later, the plumbing school where landlord Peter Jakab's father trained and which the elder Jakab eventually purchased and ran until his retirement in the 1990s. Jakab, a Deadhead attorney, chose the venue proposal over a competing bid from a bagel bakery. Founders Arty Shepherd and George Souleidis, both former bartenders at Bar Matchless (the neighborhood's previous heavy-music anchor), together with their Primitive Weapons bandmate David Castillo as booker, hired designer Matthew Maddy to convert the 2,500-square-foot space; Maddy preserved the building's original industrial gantry, suspending it from the reinforced beam ceiling and weaving it into the stage and lighting rig. The name was chosen (according to Shepherd's own account) when he opened a music magazine at random and landed on a review of Saint Vitus's Born Too Late: a name shared by the California doom-metal band, a Bauhaus song, a Black Sabbath track, and the Gothic cathedral in Prague. The room was a plain black box (250-capacity, low stage, scattered Satanic paraphernalia) but its sound and booking set it apart immediately. David Castillo programmed its first show (Liturgy, May 6, 2011) with Pitchfork writer Brandon Stosuy, who went on to book early bills including Converge, Deafheaven, and Iceage; Stosuy later said 'if you're into loud music and you live in New York, it's where you want to go.' Pitchfork named it 'the best metal bar in New York City'; Kerrang! called it 'one of the most important locations to see loud music in the entire world.' Its legend was sealed on September 8, 2012, when a tornado warning shut down Riot Fest Brooklyn mid-afternoon, and Descendents and Hot Water Music (headliners for a festival intended for thousands) relocated to Saint Vitus and played a free, sweating, wall-bowing set for roughly 500 people crammed into 250 caps. The improvised show became the venue's defining myth. Over thirteen years, the room hosted Megadeth, Anthrax, Neurosis, Carcass, High on Fire, Refused, Quicksand, Power Trip, Chelsea Wolfe, Pallbearer, Deafheaven, and Krallice alongside hundreds of local and emerging acts. Its single most storied night was April 10, 2014, when the surviving members of Nirvana (Dave Grohl, Krist Novoselic, and Pat Smear) arrived from their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction at Barclays Center for an after-show that ran past 4 a.m., rotating through guest vocalists Joan Jett, St. Vincent (Annie Clark), Kim Gordon, J Mascis, and John McCauley of Deer Tick. Rolling Stone called it 'one of the most amazing after-parties in the history of New York City.' The operating model was artist-first and community-sustained. When COVID-19 closed the bar in March 2020, Saint Vitus launched a Kickstarter seeking $15,000 for staff relief; the campaign raised $130,329 (869% of goal) sustained by weekly merchandise drops and a loyal base that set phone alarms for new reward tiers. Shepherd worked cleaning, bartending, and sound himself for the venue's first four years without a porter. Sound engineer Jeff Filmer, who joined roughly six or seven years in, cited the room's natural acoustics (shaped by people who understood the physical demands of heavy music) as a key reason major touring acts preferred its stage to larger rooms. Beyond music, Saint Vitus hosted art exhibitions, metal yoga, film screenings, comedy, and book signings by Tony Iommi, John Lydon, Bruce Dickinson, and HR. In 2021, photographer and director Nathaniel Shannon documented the venue's first decade in a 350-page oral and visual history book, funded by a Kickstarter that raised over $73,000. The venue's closure was abrupt and contested. Beginning as early as 2017, a concentrated campaign of 311 complaints (at least one complainant on record stating an intention to file daily) accumulated unresolved DOB documentation. On the evening of February 16, 2024, during a Mindforce set, city inspectors entered the building, found approximately 250 people assembled in a space whose most recent Certificate of Occupancy (dated November 12, 1953) designated it only for commercial store use and machinery storage, and ordered the venue cleared. The closure was mid-song. New York City Council Member Justin Brannan called the complaint pattern 'an element of weaponization of the 311 system.' Council Member Keith Powers described the loss as 'devastating' while noting the scale of capital improvements that code compliance would have required. Owners Shepherd, Souleidis, and Castillo posted: '1120 Manhattan Ave. 2011–2024, to be continued.' By August 17, 2024, they confirmed the Greenpoint location was permanently closed. 'Saint Vitus Presents' has continued staging events at Knockdown Center, Market Hotel, Trans-Pecos, and Elsewhere.

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