(Photo: Gustavo Ponce)

(Photo: Gustavo Ponce)

Last week, the possibility that New York City music fans feared the most became a reality: the space at 906 Broadway that since April 2014 had been known as Palisades– the DIY venue with a bar, shows almost every night of the week ranging from punk to noise and underground hip-hop, and Ariel Bitran, the co-owner/booker with a heart of gold and ears that were open to even the littlest of bands– had a “For Rent” sign placed in its window.

After the NYPD shut down a Northside show at the all-ages spot in June, the Department of Buildings cited the venue for multiple violations including lack of a sprinkler system. The DOB also found that Palisades had undergone basement work without proper construction permits.

Initially, the beloved DIY venue, which had recently been featured—along with its very own infamous support beam (much like Market Hotel’s pillar)—as an illustrated version of itself on the  cover of The New Yorker, was aiming to get the building up to code. Shows were moved to other venues, while the DIY scene voiced its dismay and patiently awaited Palisades’s return.

According to the venue, they were about to start booking shows again. Palisades tweeted after the police raid that they’d be shut down only “for a few days.” After the inactivity continued, that statement started to sound a bit too optimistic. But now, after nearly two months of waiting and watching, it appears as though Palisade’s organizers have given up. (Palisades did not return B+B’s multiple emails.) Just before news of the building’s rental broke, the venue tweeted a single “peace sign” emoji. 

It’s mostly unclear what will happen now—if Palisades will look for a new space or if its organizers will start putting on shows elsewhere—but with the storefront up for rent, one thing’s for certain: the JMZ triangle is getting some new neighbors. With that in mind, we thought we might as well make a few suggestions to the owners regarding potential new tenants:

  • A sprinkler store
  • Any LiveNation venue
  • Whatever culture-gobbling corporate entity was going to take over that space in five years, anyway. Staples?
  • A permanent headquarters for TEDxBushwick
  • Vices’s Myrtle-Broadway outpost
  • K2 lab (c’mon guys– you really gotta get on that next slightly different synthetic cannabinoid)
  • Support beam storage facility
  • Department of Buildings HQ (so they’ll have to explain what happened to anyone who comes looking for a show)
  • Monument to the Bushwick music scene