Will Somebody Please Save Goodbye Blue Monday?
Well, this is terrible: Goodbye Blue Monday, maybe the most lovably weird (and genuinely egalitarian) venue in all of Brooklyn will be closing at the end of the month, unless a buyer swoops in to take the place over.
Brooklyn Paper reports that the 9-year-old bar/performance space owes the city $7,000 in back fines, and the venue wrote on its Facebook page, “To quote the man [Goodbye Blue Monday] was named after, ‘so it goes…” […] Goodbye Blue Monday is closing down at the end of the month unless we can find a buyer who wants to take over ownership before then.”
They’re also running into problems with their landlord, who apparently has plans to double the rent when their lease is up in a couple of months. The venue’s former owner and current booker Steve Trimboli told Brooklyn Paper, “I’m devastated, but I also understand that it was a matter of time because of the way this neighborhood is exploding. I knew that when the lease was up, it was not going to be good.”
So, the clear solution here is that someone—one of our benevolent, investment-minded readers, maybe?—needs to step in and take the reigns here. There are too many silly, expensive places in Brooklyn (in the world) for us to lose the one place in town that’ll book literally anyone, never charges a cover, hosts open mic comedy (every Thursday night, it’s not to be missed), and turns out a truly incredible basket of fries. If anyone’s got any bright ideas about how to help GBM stay afloat, we’re open to ’em.
Follow Virginia K. Smith on Twitter @vksmith.