Impresario Has Designs on Wall Street

 by Carl Glassman

In an empty and august Wall Street space, with its marble columns and 30-foot ceiling, Michael Dorf was taking a visitor on a tour of his next Downtown dream: a 1,500-seat club. “Carnegie Hall with a wine list,” he calls it.

Knitting Factory founder Micheal Dorf plans to create a grand new performance hall on Wall Street, which he hope will be a major catalyst for culture and commerce in the revival of Downtown. Photo by Carl Glassman

Here, about 20 blocks south of the Knitting Factory, the jazz and rock club on Leonard Street he founded 16 years ago and left as CEO in February, Dorf wants to make his mark on Wall Street with what could be the first big cultural catalyst for the renewal of Lower Manhattan.

By his own estimate, the new venue—with such headliners as Sonny Rollins, Lou Reed and Nora Jones—would bring 40,000 people a month to an area that now shuts its doors after dark.

Gesturing toward the room’s imposing arched windows, Dorf detailed his plans to put a curved balcony with loges, and perhaps a couple of private VIP boxes. Then he walked to the other end of the room, his footsteps echoing through the cavernous space. Here he envisions a 1,000-square-foot stage, three times bigger than the Knitting Factory’s, and flexible space for the audience, with tables, theater seats or standing room.

“I’m walking through here in a weird way,” said Dorf, his eyes wide with possibilities. “In my mind, it’s already built.”

Always the optimist, Dorf hopes to announce by the end of this month that his performance center, called the Art Exchange, will indeed be built. But the magnificent landmarked space—he spoke to the Trib on condition that the address not be disclosed—is not his yet. He is still piecing together the financing for the $6 million project.
“I want to be 50 percent of the way financed before I get a lease,” he said. “Right now I’m 30 percent, so I have a little more to go, and I have a lot of interested parties.”

Dorf tried not to overstate the likelihood of his plans for this Wall Street location, calling the space his “leading contender.” He asserted that if the Art Exchange doesn’t happen here, it will go elsewhere in the Financial District.

“No matter where or what I do, I’m going to be looking for a large room where I can do a seated type of facility. New York needs a concert hall where you can sit down and watch a show, an adult show, be served drinks, and not stand for a concert.”

Dorf, 40, is married, with twins in pre-kindergarten at P.S. 150. He said that his peers—ages 35 to 55—don’t enjoy being packed into sweaty clubs any more. “Adult” is a word he uses often these days.
Michael Dorf, in the landmarked Wall Street space that he hopes to transform into a 1,000-seat club, with 300-seat balcony. Downstairs, he plans a 300-seat club. Dorf said he wants to present dance and film as well as music. Photo by Carl Glassman

“I love Town Hall but you can’t get a drink. And Irving Plaza is too crowded for an adult show. [I’d] like to go out and see a show and be able to drink out of a glass instead of a plastic cup, where the vibe is one of respect for the facility.”

Not surprisingly, Dorf has the support of Downtown’s boosters.

“We are excited about the project,” said Carl Weisbrod, president of the Downtown Alliance, which arranged for a $500,000 federal-state low-interest loan to Dorf. “The Art Exchange will not only bring more people Downtown, but will showcase Lower Manhattan as an alternative cultural destination.”

Wall Street Rising introduced Dorf to the owner of the Wall Street building and possible lenders.

“If we want to achieve a 24/7 community, it’s critical that we have more cultural uses Downtown,” said the organization’s president, Julie Menin. Citing a recent study showing that workers and residents list cultural institutions as a priority for Downtown, Menin said that Dorf’s plan is on target.

“This fits in exactly with our findings,” she said. “There’s a lot of enthusiasm for this project. People want to see it happen and I think he will make it happen.”

Dorf has drawn up plans for a three-tiered, 30,000-square-foot facility. Below the upper-level main room there would be a street-level, 250-person-capacity café-bar connecting to rooms for gallery, educational and community use. He also envisions a 250-seat club downstairs.

These staid Wall Street digs are a far cry from the ratty East Houston Street walkup where Dorf, at 24, founded the Knitting Factory in 1986.

The club became one of the city’s premier venues for jazz and rock, featuring the likes of Pat Metheny, Sonic Youth, Marc Ribot and John Zorn. It moved to its bigger Tribeca site in 1994, where it has shows on four stages nightly.

Knit Media, the holding company that Dorf established, also owns a record company and a new club in Los Angeles.

Fueled by venture capital of nearly $5 million for Internet expansion, Dorf’s ambitions caught fire six years ago when he attempted to turn Knit Media into a music empire, with interactive webcasting from Tribeca, Knitting Factorys in Europe, and the new two-stage Los Angeles club that he called “the consummate content-gathering facility.”

But a confluence of financial debacles, not least of which were the dot-com bust and huge construction overruns at the Los Angeles club, sank Dorf’s dreams and led him to pass majority ownership of Knit Media to investors.

Differences with those investors—some from the dot-com days, others who came in later to save the club—led him to resign as CEO earlier this year. He is still a shareholder and sits on the board.

“My interest has always been the more high-culture side of what the Knitting Factory did and less about the rock-and-roll, beer-drinking side,” he said. “The leaning of the investors today is much more toward making it a profitable bottom-line business.”

Dorf said he had wanted to move the club to a more commercial street. “It’s no secret that Leonard Street is a different block than it was 10 years ago,” he said.

He also wanted a more upscale space for performers such as Laurie Anderson and Philip Glass.

“From Houston Street to Tribeca was a big upgrade. My feeling was to continue in that direction. They’re not interested.”

For all his differences with the Knit’s majority owners, Dorf said, it was hard to pull away. He even held onto a vision of his children one day opening Knitting Factorys of their own.

It was the prospect of moving to Wall Street, he said, that got him excited about making the split.

“I realized that if I do something new, maybe in a little way it could help the city, help culture, help the screwed-up world. And maybe push in a direction that means something more.”