The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 158 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago School structure by architect Ernest Flagg was known at the time as Mills House No. 1 and served as a flophouse for transient men. In its heyday, the Village Gate also included an upper-story performance space, known as the Top of the Gate.
Throughout its 38 years the Village Gate featured such musicians as John Coltrane, Coleman Hawkins, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, Dizzy Gillespie, Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Vasant Rai, Nina Simone, Herbie Mann and Aretha Franklin, who made her first New York appearance there. The show Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, debuted at the Village Gate in 1968.
Read more about The Village Gate: History, Notable Productions, Recordings
Famous quotes containing the words village and/or gate:
“Tom was a glittering hero once more—the pet of the old, the envy of the young. His name even went into immortal print, for the village paper magnified him. There were some that believed he would be President, yet, if he escaped hanging.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“Duns at his lordship’s gate began to meet;
And brickdust Moll had screamed through half the street.
The turnkey now his flock returning sees,
Duly let out a-nights to steal for fees:
The watchful bailiffs take their silent stands,
And schoolboys lag with satchels in their hands.”
—Jonathan Swift (1667–1745)