From today's NY Times
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August 1, 2005
With Negotiations Stalled, Clock Ticks Down for CBGB in Rent Dispute
By BEN SISARIO
Hilly Kristal was feeling optimistic.
Though CBGB, the landmark Bowery rock club he founded in 1973, is embroiled in a legal dispute with its landlord and faces eviction at the end of the month when its lease expires, there were signs, Mr. Kristal said, that an agreement would be reached soon.
"I think it's going to be settled amicably," he said by phone last week from his office at the club, where, at 73, he still arrives early each morning and answers the phone with a quick, cordial "CB's."
But as Mr. Kristal discussed the situation, his attitude changed. He said he was certain that his landlord - the nonprofit Bowery Residents' Committee, which aids about 8,000 homeless people each year - "wants me out," and he soured on the prospects of a new lease.
Then he excused himself to go to a meeting where, Mr. Kristal said, he would discuss moving the club to Las Vegas.
"If New York doesn't want me," he said, "then I'll try to do something else. There are people out there who do want me."
With 31 days left in its lease, CBGB's future remains uncertain, and though a motley group of celebrities, public relations specialists and punk activists have worked steadily in recent weeks to help the club negotiate with its landlord, no agreement has been reached, and stomachs have tightened all around.
Today, Steven Van Zandt, of the E Street Band and "The Sopranos," who has been leading the celebrity volunteer effort to save the club, is to announce an Aug. 31 rally, planned for Washington Square Park. Depending on the success of a proposal that Mr. Van Zandt's team has submitted to the committee on behalf of the club, the rally could be CBGB's last hurrah or the start of its new life.
"This is the last rock 'n' roll symbol left," Mr. Van Zandt said. "We have seen one iconic rock 'n' roll venue after the other disappear, and we finally said, 'Let's draw a line here, and save at least one.' "
If CBGB closes, it will join a number of downtown clubs that have shut down in the last several years. This year Fez and the Luna Lounge have closed because of development, and last year the Bottom Line was shut over a debt of more than $185,000 to its landlord, New York University.
Four years ago the Bowery Residents' Committee sued CBGB for about $300,000 in unpaid rent, which the club has been paying back, both sides say. But early this year the landlord, which has a 45-year lease on the building and subleases the ground floor spaces and basements of 315 and 313 Bowery to the club, found that CBGB owed an additional $75,000 because it had not been paying the scheduled increases in its monthly rent, and the case landed back in court.
Mr. Kristal has said he did not pay the increases because he was never billed for them. The case has been in Manhattan Civil Court since February; Judge Joan M. Kenney has not yet ruled. But the committee has listed the property for September occupancy at a rate that would more than double the current rent of $19,000 a month.
For Muzzy Rosenblatt, the executive director of the Bowery Residents' Committee, the matter is simple: CBGB has a debt and it must be paid.
"I don't understand why," he said, "if they admit they owe it, they want to withhold money that goes to help homeless people."
He estimated that the dispute, between the lost rent and the legal expenses over it as well as a flurry of building violations, has cost the organization about $200,000, which "would put enough outreach workers out on the street to help 100 homeless people every day."
The organization has an annual budget of about $32 million, mostly from government sources and Medicaid; in its 18 locations around the city, CBGB is its only commercial tenant. (An arts reporter for The Times, Julie Salamon, is the committee's chairwoman.)
Relations between Mr. Kristal and Mr. Rosenblatt, never warm, froze over completely this spring, when the committee withdrew from settlement discussions. Then a series of celebrities and assorted fans and businesspeople, concerned for the club's future, tried to help restart negotiations.
Among the first were the singer David Byrne and the filmmaker Jonathan Demme, who hoped to arrange a meeting with both sides but found them unwilling.
"We said, 'Can we sit down and maybe both sides can compromise a bit,' " Mr. Byrne recalled. "Both sides seemed to be open to that idea, but then some of them decided that they weren't open anymore, that they would take their chances with the courts."
In June, Mr. Van Zandt said, he was recruited by a panicked Mr. Kristal to negotiate with Mr. Rosenblatt. Mr. Van Zandt, who organized Artists United Against Apartheid in the mid-1980's and was active in environmental and Native American campaigns, assembled a team.
After an initial meeting with Mr. Rosenblatt on June 20, Mr. Van Zandt and his team began to put together a proposal that would meet Mr. Rosenblatt's demands. A new lease would have a third-party guarantor and any outstanding building violations would be addressed. A foundation would be set up to contribute $100,000 a year to the Bowery Residents' Committee, raised in benefit concerts. A new lease, for 15 years, would include a modest rent increase.
The proposal was delivered to the organization last month, but Mr. Van Zandt said he had not received an answer and had had difficulty communicating with Mr. Rosenblatt and his staff. On Thursday evening, with a half-dozen associates gathered around him, Mr. Van Zandt sounded frustrated.
"I feel bad about this," he said. "I wish I could have done more."
But Mr. Rosenblatt said he had not yet made a decision on the proposal, and said he was considering it carefully.
Among his biggest concerns, he said, are a number of building violation notices the club received in October 2003, during inspections that followed a fire that killed 100 people at a Rhode Island club. The violations included lack of certification for flame retardant curtains and an aisle by the stage that was found to be too narrow.
Mr. Kristal and his representatives are adamant that the most serious faults were corrected immediately and that they are working to correct the remaining violations. Mr. Rosenblatt said too many were still outstanding.
The committee houses 175 people in the floors above the club; hundreds more pass through a second-floor "drop in center" - where they can rest and receive basic care - that is directly above the CBGB stage.
Mr. Rosenblatt, who said his first date with the woman who became his wife was to a concert at CBGB, said he believed an agreement could still be reached.
"We believe," he said, "that people can change."
