CB1 Nixes Liquor License for 570-Person Club

By Carl Glassman

They thought they had come prepared.

There was the architect, the general manager, the creative director, the performance director and the project manager, not to mention a sound consultant and security consultant, and there were letters of support from art critics, museum curators and even a church pastor.

So rejection came like a jolt to the group when they stood before Community Board 1's Tribeca Committee at its last meeting of the summer. They were seeking advisory approval for a liquor license for their proposed 570- capacity, two-level club at 100 Lafayette St., between Walker and White Streets. The venue would be open until 4 a.m. seven nights a week.

The team insisted they were not proposing a run-of-the-mill club but a "full arts center," with art installations, music for every taste, spoken-word and avant-garde performances, film festivals, even a seniors disco on weekdays.

"There has never been anything quite like it—certainly not in the recent history of the city," said Spencer Sweeney, an artist and DJ who would serve as the venue's creative director.

However hard the organizers tried to paint their enterprise as a cultural mecca, one that they said the city sorely needs, committee members could only picture noise and traffic.

"You smell like a nightclub, you look like a nightclub," said committee member Giselle Hantz. "I have a hard time believing that artists are going to be hanging out at 2 a.m. having intense conversations."

Anne Compoccia, at her first CB1 committee meeting since leaving the community board she had chaired for many years, said the neighborhood didn't need what the group was offering.

"You seem to have gone through a tremendous amount of money and work to come here to present this-this thing that's going to fill this cultural void that I was not aware we have."

In its resolution opposing the license, the board called the club "out of scale and context to the surrounding neighborhood."

"It was like a punch in the gut," Larry Golden, the intended general manager, said later. "We wanted to create something new and exciting that New York could be proud of."

But the club organizers haven't given up. They are trying to gather local support and hope to return to CB1 in a few months.

"If we're really going forward," said Aimee Barnes, consultant to the group, "I have to know that most of the community will back us up on it."