Shelter

Overview

Timmy Regisford's deep garage-house party, opened 1991 for the Black, Latino and queer dancers left without a floor when the Paradise Garage closed. Its records and residencies carried a 'Shelter sound' well beyond New York.

Shelter opened in March 1991 at 6 Hubert Street in Tribeca, founded by resident DJs Timmy Regisford, Merlin Bobb and Freddy Sanon, figures left 'homeless' by the Paradise Garage's 1987 close, who built Shelter to keep that crowd together. Under Regisford ('The Maestro'), twelve-to-eighteen-hour sets braided deep house with disco, soul, R&B and Afro-Latin records (an early Fela champion; he later produced Femi Kuti) into a deep, soulful garage-house policy widely heard as the Garage's direct successor. The crowd was multiracial, multigenerational and openly queer; the creed was 'no drugs, no alcohol, only music,' carried on a 37,000-watt system, with Friday nights anchored by the N.A.S.A. collective and guests including Larry Levan, Tony Humphries, Louie Vega, David Morales, Frankie Knuckles and François Kevorkian. The party moved from Hubert Street to midtown around 2001 (20 West 39th Street; Femi Kuti played live in 2002), then to 150 Varick Street in west SoHo by 2006, and later became a roving night. Regisford's records, mixes and global residencies (Tokyo, London) exported the 'Shelter sound' worldwide.

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