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TheVillage Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson andBleecker Streets inGreenwich Village, New York.Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large 1896Chicago School structure by architectErnest Flagg[1] was known at the time asMills House No. 1 and served as aflophouse fortransient men. In its heyday, the Village Gate also included an upper-story performance space, known as theTop of the Gate.[2]
Throughout its 38 years, the Village Gate featured such musicians asJohn Coltrane,Coleman Hawkins,Duke Ellington,Mongo Santamaria,Jimi Hendrix,Golden Earring,Dizzy Gillespie,Bill Evans,Dave Brubeck,Larry Coryell,Charles Mingus,Sonny Rollins,Dexter Gordon,Art Blakey,Woody Shaw,Miles Davis,Stan Getz,Vasant Rai,Nina Simone,Herbie Mann,Woody Allen,Patti Smith,Lucio Dalla,Velvet Underground,Edgard Varèse, andAretha Franklin, who made her first New York appearance there. The showJacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, debuted at the Village Gate in 1968.
In the 1960s, radio DJ and Latin music advocateSymphony Sid hosted a regular Monday night concert at the Village Gate - "Monday Nights at the Gate" - featuring the best of New York's thriving Latin music scene. Assalsa music began to grow in popularity, theAlegre record label began to host quite a few events at the Village Gate - many of which resulted in live recordings. Some of the live recordings from the Village Gate were the Alegre All-Star (and later Tico All-Star) Descarga sessions. The "Salsa Meets Jazz" series at the Village Gate was a seminal part of the history of New York Latin music. In 1977, WRVR jazz and Latin music DJ and jazz musician/conga drummerRoger Dawson created and hosted a weekly event that brought top Latin bands together with a guest jazz soloist. Dawson named the event "Salsa Meets Jazz".Sonny Stitt withEddie Palmieri,Dexter Gordon withMachito,Dizzy Gillespie withTito Puente,James Moody,Wynton Marsalis,Bobby Hutcherson,David "Fathead" Newman,Slide Hampton, andPharoah Sanders, to name a few, all jumped in to "jam" with the best salsa bands of the time.
The club hosted a benefit forTimothy Leary in May 1970 that featured performances from such counterculture luminaries asJimi Hendrix andAllen Ginsberg. From 1971 to 1973, amusical comedyrevue calledNational Lampoon's Lemmings had a successful run at the Gate. It starred future comic notablesJohn Belushi,Chevy Chase, Garry Goodrow, andChristopher Guest, and lampooned the 1969Woodstock Festival, which had taken place upstate two years earlier, calling it "Woodchuck" and equating the entirehippie generation withlemmings bent on self-destruction.
Let My People Come opened at the Village Gate Theater in 1974. The show broke all box office records there and played for 1,167 performances. Its transfer to the Morosco Theatre on Broadway was not as successful, though, and closed after 106 performances. It was nominated for a Grammy in 1974 and has appeared all over the world.
From 1989 to 1991, the improvisational comedy troupeNoo Yawk Tawk performed at the upstairs theater. The group was conceived and directed by Richmond Shepard, a world-renowned mime, actor, comedian, and teacher. All of the performances for Noo Yawk Tawk were entirely improvised. Characters may have been repeated, but never the sketches or the dialogue. The audience always set the scene and conditions for each improvisation, so every performance was different. The cast included Stan Taffel,Marc Kudisch,Debra Wilson,Eric Douglas,Garry Goodrow, Miguel Sierra, Ken Dashow, Nola Roeper,Bonnie Comley, and Richmond Shepard. Taffel would go on to win three Emmy Awards for his performances inThe News In Revue on PBS. Kudisch earned a Tony nomination in 2002.
The Village Gate name was again used in 1996 at 240 West 52nd Street. Art D'Lugoff, co-producer of the showA Brief History of White Music was looking to rent the space in a site formerly occupied by the Lone Star Road House. That incarnation and the show lasted until 1997. In 1998, the 52nd Street location was taken by a brief reincarnation ofMax's Kansas City.
The Village Gate closed its Greenwich Village location in February 1994. The ground floor is currently occupied byCVS/Pharmacy. Theoff-Broadway capacity Village Theater, which hosted performances of the musically themedLove, Janis,Dream a Little Dream,Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, andEscape From Bellevue, occupied the sublevel performance space until fall 2007. In spring 2008, the space was reopened as a multiuse performance venue and gallery bar called(Le) Poisson Rouge.
The club is mentioned bysalsa superstarsRichie Ray & Bobby Cruz in their songPancho Cristal, off their 1968 LPLos Durísimos.
Vámonos pa'l Village Gate
Que allí es donde usted va y ve
Bravos de latumbadora
Y las estrellas de ahora.
The club is mentioned again in themontuno:
Pancho Cristal
Descarga del Village Gate.
as well as inChronicles: Volume One byBob Dylan.
The Top Of The Gate a.k.a. Village Gate (Upstairs):
The Village Gate Theater a.k.a. Village Gate (Downstairs):
The Village Gate 52nd Street
Notable albums recorded live at The Village Gate:
The Village Gate was a stop on the 'Greenwich Village Walking Tour', in part becauseBob Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in September 1962 in abasement apartment occupied byChip Monck, the Village Gate lighting engineer and future compere and lighting designer of theWoodstock Festival.
The Village Gate is used as a setting in the 1961 film noir movieBlast of Silence.[3]
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