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The fight for small venues to survive
The emblematic Smalls Jazz Club located in the heart of the once vibrant Greenwich Village is facing a dire situation. “We don’t know if we will have to close”, says it’s owner Spike Wilner. The club was closed from March 15th until September 30th . Since then it has been allowed to open at 25 percent capacity and is now offering two sets a day with fifteen seats available per set.
Smalls is one of the clubs that were part of an energetic and vibrant network of small music venues in New York’s Greenwich Village and part of a jazz tourism circuit that brought people to the city who wanted to experience live music in small venues. Since the pandemic, many restaurants and small businesses have been closing for good and many are resisting the economic side of the pandemic with little to no governmental help.
“We closed our businesses on March 15th, I couldn’t believe it, I had never seen in the history of the US that businesses would be shut by the government” says Wilner. “I think it is a very dark time, a very scary historic time”, he adds with a demeanor of frustration.
Another emblematic small venue in Greenwich village, The Bitter End, has also said that it will have to close its doors if there isn’t some kind of aid. The club has received temporary relief of its $23,000 a month rent, according to Bloomberg. The small venue…
