Rock venue Irving Plaza is set to go quiet this summer for an eight-month renovation. The 150-year-old venue hosts its last scheduled show for the year on June 30—headlined by tropical band Guaco—before shutting down for work that is scheduled to last until next spring.
Live Nation, the concert hall’s operator, announced the planned renovations this week along with the Polish Army Veterans Association, which has owned the building since 1948.
The 3,300-square-foot hall was converted from a Polish-American community center into a concert venue in 1978. Since then, Irving Plaza’s marquee has listed big-name artists including Bob Dylan, the Foo Fighters, Radiohead and the Talking Heads. Paul McCartney played a surprise show there to a capacity crowd of about 1,000 on Valentine’s Day in 2015.
But, as some Yelp reviews document, concertgoers have complained about the venue’s narrow interior and a layout that makes it difficult to buy a drink or use the restroom without missing segments of the show.
Live Nation is promising that the venue will reopen with a revamped lobby, new bars, a downstairs VIP lounge and a remodeled mezzanine with a new configuration for box seats. A Live Nation spokesman said four new bathrooms are on the way as well.
Our new downstairs neighbor, The Drop House, seems to be some kind of short-term music pop-up experience. It’s a bit hard to decode.
The food hall inside the Zero Irving building and 14th St. and Irving Place didn’t last long, but now it will bounce back as a *different* food hall, this time sponsored by TimeOut, which has a winning example in Dumbo.
Here’s the rundown of vendors that will arrive next month.
…replacing Diesel at the corner of 14th and Union Square West
Next week (July 2 to July 6), Mechanical equipment and work will continue at the 17th and 18th floor levels. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic. The site will be closed on Wednesday, July 4th, for the holiday.
The following week (July 9 to July 13), we will be working on the machine room levels on the 17th and 18th floors. Deliveries for the internal systems of the building have been ongoing and will continue, although they should not greatly affect the flow of pedestrian and road traffic. The crane is scheduled for demobilization on Saturday the 7th.
This weekend the site will be open on Saturday, June 30th for superstructure related activities between the work hours of 7AM and 5PM as permitted by the City. To control noise levels within the site, work activities will be limited to working on the mechanical systems of the building and using the crane and equipment to support activities. Safety horns are used, and required by law, to coordinate lifting with the crane and to alert the workers of the danger overhead. We have directed the operators to limit the use of horns to one short sounding and to use the crane later in the day so as to avoid any excess noise.
Check out the new Time Out food hall when it opens at 14th. St east of the park on September 26. Will a new food hall succeed in a location where the previous food hall failed? We’ll see.