CBGB Plans on Reopening Reeaaal Soon

January 25, 2012 12:02 PM

Photo by Teresa Lee/Getty Images

Filed under

Listen up folks, some rumors are worth the spreadin’!

Especially this tasty morsel about the iconic music club CBGB reopening, which closed on October 15, 2006 after lengthy disputes over back rent between owner Hilly Kristal and the Bowery Residents’ Committee.

[photogallerylink id=28047]

We happen to know a guy (Gothamist) who has inside info from another guy (Don’t know ‘em) that there are plans to reopen CBGB in a new space somewhere in Manhattan, not 315 Bowery at Bleecker Street, where the club resided for over thirty years.

Don’t cry “BLASPHEMY!” just yet. Nearly every poster, chair, table, and screw that was scattered throughout the club is currently in storage in a 3,000-square-foot space in Williamsburg, which makes replicating the original venue pretty easy.

The bar is even being held in a trailer in Connecticut, so that piece of gum you stuck under it in ’78 when you went to see The Police could still be there.

The bar would obviously be under new ownership, since Hilly Kristal passed away on August 28, 2007 from complications of lung cancer at the age of seventy-five.

Will reopening CBGB in another location fill the void left by its closing?

Let us know in the comments section below!

While you mull that over, watch this clip of Talking Heads performing “Psycho Killer” at CBGB!

More News on CBGB from WCBSFM.com!

Latest from WCBSFM.com >

http://gravatar.com/groovyfox camille

That would be totally outta site if CBGB’s reopened! But if it was in anither location it would not be the same at all.
http://www.facebook.com/jimi.lalumia Jimi LaLumia

sounds like fun, but what I really miss is MAX”S KANSAS CITY!!
http://www.reverbnation.com/rockstarnyccom Kevin Lynch

I might wanna move back to NYC if this really happens.
Marc

Let the legend be what it was.

Music

Agreed.

Dawn Owar

They moved the Marquee in London. It wasn’t the same, but it was a good venue and we made lots of memories there too.
Brian

I hope so!

A lot of people miss that place!!
Paul Candelaria

I would love to see it reopened WITH the same attitudes that made it famous. Fuck yuppies, posers and all that lot.
http://www.facebook.com/hollykimwilson Holly Kim Wilson

YES! I’m sad it won’t be te original space, but that club needs to come back somewhere in the Village or downtown.
http://www.pyramidsnake.com SSPS

I have mixed feelings on the whole matter. I somehow doubt that any real underground activity will be going on there. Bob Shannon will MC, The Strokes will play a Television cover set and the tickets will be 75 dollars with a 50 dollar internet surcharge. No in’s and outs. Stage diving.

Lola

Underground activity hadn’t really been going on at CBGBs for some time…decades maybe. And are you saying stage diving didnt happen at CBs? the stage at CBs was like 16 inches off the floor, every hardcore show had stage divers….

I don’t think they should try to replicate it; just open CBGB 2 and get a good venue up and running…they really should not replicate that bathroom by the stage.

Tony PunkRock Burman

It might not have the attraction and charisma of the old Bowery and Bleeker venue, but on a positive side a new CBGB’S is way better than no CBGB’S.
conrad

I was always afraid they would resurrect it as the next Hard Rock Cafe franchise. They just might. There could be one in every town. Manhattan no longer has a neighborhood where young artists and musicians can scrape by and have an exchange of ideas and energy. It’s now exclusively an island of incredibly rich people. I still love NYC, even cleaned up, but they scrubbed a little too deep over the last 20 years. When they swept away the homeless and scrubbed off the grafitti, the also lost their street level cool and priced artists out of the neighborhood.
http://gravatar.com/kingkevz Kevin

THEY SHOULD RE-OPEN AT DON HILLS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Music

The idea of bringing a new music venue out in New York is a great one, as we’ve been losing many through the years. However, after closing the original CBGB, turning it into a ridiculously over-priced store where they have cased in pieces of the original wall and extremely unfriendly staff who won’t even let you take photos because you remember the times you spent there before it was replaced with $350 Guns N Roses shirts you’d think were stolen from salvation army, I don’t see the point in opening up another place with the same name. Call it something else and make it what CBGB was in it’s own way. Just like the CBGB store, it’s going to be a flop.

Kim

That isn’t a CBGB store. Varavos (sp?) took it over and have profited off the legendary space.

Music

My statement having to do with the CBGB store, was referring to the success of a new establishment. My mentioning the store in CBGB’s place has to do with the first time I stepped in there since before the closing two weeks ago and what I saw/experienced.

http://www.facebook.com/jamesmccomb James McComb

Leave it alone. Don’t ruin good memories.
http://gemmaseymour.wordpress.com Gemma Seymour

The question of whether or not moving to a new location would matter is irrelevant. What would make or break the place is if the place operated anything at all like it did in the old days, and I think we all know that the answer to that is that CBGB & OMFUG was a product of its times, and can never be replicated, anymore than we should be trying to replicate Danceteria, the Underground, the Limelight, or any of the other venues as they were in their heydays.

Manhattan is simply too expensive to be the same island I grew up with.

If anyone tries to re-open a place called CBGB, it will inevitably be a place that cashes in on the legacy in order to book famous bands and charge an arm and a leg for admission and drinks. Can you see the $3 for 3 bands hardcore matinée coming back? I don’t think so.

I played CBGB, and I was sorry to see it go, but I don’t want to see it turned into Universal Studios, you know what I mean? Don’t co-op my memories to make an overpriced wax museum recycling the music of eras gone by, booked by Clear Channel, and masquerading as the vital and necessary cultural forge that was CBGB & OMFUG.
Fred Saez

Didn’t stick any gum under the bar at cbgb’s in ’78, but i puked in the bathroom in ’76 during a Tuff Dart’s show.

E.J.

Bahahahaha just fell out of my chair from excessive lolz!!!

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000306241080 Josh Ehrlich

but the bar is still in there an alot of poters are still on the wall at that over priced record store thing WTF
http://gravatar.com/theshowbizwizard Mick Du Russel

That is fantastic news! Why not bring something back that has so many great memories attached to it!! Lets hope this is true!!!
Coatbridge

Not for me, leave it well alone …
http://www.xombienation.com RobXombie

My dream of playing at CBGB could finally come true!
http://ceeceeryder.bigcartel.com Cee Cee

I think reopening it would be a great idea since there is not many cool places in NYC with that kind of history to hang out in anymore.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100003354666109 Dave Provost

The old room was the best sounding venue in the U.S. The stage was built by Television,They could never recreate the magic.C.B.s ended when Hot Topic started selling the shirts.

http://www.facebook.com/jimi.lalumia Jimi LaLumia

I thought the sound at Max’s Kansas City was far superior..and the stage was there before Television, that mythology that they discovered CB’s is just that, a myth..they discovered the location by seeing the ad in the Village Voice for Wayne County playing at Hilly’s months before they ever played there..Besides County, Eric Emerson & The Magic Tramps also played there months before Television..

ab2bw@yahoo.com

I feel the same out of sight if the club would reopen, but without Hilly? I guess business is buisness as always. Fuck why not open it up again.

Now Max’s on the other hand wow!!