Bowery Ballroom
Delancey Street at the early part of this century was a thriving, exclusive retail strip. The building that now houses the new Bowery Ballroom was once an opulent shoe store, complete with a barrel-vaulted entrance and a two-story high sales floor wrapped by a bronze-railed mezzanine. The mezzanine was lined with displayed shoes and culminated in two private fitting rooms. As the real estate boom pushed high-end retail further and further uptown, the shoe store changed hands repeatedly, lastly serving as a carpet warehouse. CCArchitects was retained by the new owners to design a 800 capacity performance environment featuring a grand music room on the main floor and an intimate bar/lounge at the basement level.
This work was a collaboration with Brian Swier.
Elevation Plan
Upper Balcony Before
Lounge and Bar Area
Stage Area
To maximize a limited construction budget, the architects kept some spaces very much intact and salvaged and reused ornamental items. The façade was altered slightly to accommodate revised and additional entrances, and belies the network of new stairs and circulation spaces required to serve and safely egress the spaces within. Most of its original stonework and cast bronze detailing was retained and enhanced. The barrel vault that crowned the original entrance now covers an intimate mezzanine bar. The mezzanine itself was reconfigured to maximize sight lines and to accommodate the new sound control platform. The former private fitting rooms were transformed into VIP lounges. In the basement lounge an antique mahogany bullnosed bar was procured from a bankrupt business elsewhere in NYC and was retrofitted with a strip of backlit sandblasted glass and topped with sparkling pendant star lamps from Mexico. Other lighting includes colorful glowing glass globes mounted to the refurbished mezzanine rail and colored fluorescent channels tucked away in several areas to wash walls. Great attention was paid to acoustics throughout the club, from the precise location of the soundboard, to the sand filled stage. A special auxiliary sound and light control booth is located above the stage to further augment bands’ control over their performances.
Upper Balcony After
Vaulted Mezzanine Bar