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Despite Almost Doubling Their Kickstarter Goal, Shea Stadium Is Closing
By
David Colon
Published Apr 19, 2017
Modified Apr 19, 2017
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Photo by Seth Applebaum, via Shea Stadium
By
David Colon
Published Apr 19, 2017
Modified Apr 19, 2017
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Last month, DIY venue Shea Stadium launched a Kickstarter in order to secure a future for weird cheap ramshackle venues that host fun shows. Despite the fact that people behind the venue raised almost twice the $50,000 goal that would have gone towards paying to bring the venue up to code (and idiotic bloggers making stupid predictions), Shea's management announced today that their landlord is no longer going along with the plan to keep the venue open, and that this is end of Shea.
In a Kickstarter update, the Shea Stadium team announced that they were ready to submit the first round of paperwork to the city, when their landlords told them they weren't going along with the plan anymore. "Sadly, their brand new plan for 20 Meadow Street includes a nightclub of their own on the ground floor and no Shea Stadium upstairs," the team wrote.
Without the venue's landlords signing off on the paperwork, the changes to the venue can't go forward, and the venue is effectively dead. The team said that they presented a number of scenarios to their landlords in order to allow the nightclub and Shea to co-exist together, but the landlords "made clear that their intentions are to move forward with their foray into nightlife without us in the picture."
Representatives of 20 Meadow Realty LLC, which owns the building, could not immediately be reached for comment.
The club had recently reopened this past weekend in order to host the latest Macaulay Culkin Show, which as things stand, may have been the final show that the venue will have ever hosted.
As far as the Kickstarter goes, Shea's management is offering refunds to anyone who wants them, since the fundraiser is still open for another 45 hours. But they say whatever money stays in the Kickstarter will be used to help open a new venue. Even that is somewhat tenuous, however, and since a search for a new venue doesn't come with a guarantee one will be found, the team also promised a full refund if they can't find one.
"There's also a chance that space doesn't exist for us in NYC 2017, and Shea Stadium becomes part of its history instead, but we won't know until we get out on the streets and start looking," the team wrote in the update. We emailed the Shea team for a comment on their future and will update this story if we hear back from them.
So, just remember that death will come for everything and everyone that you love, and never, ever decide to just hang out watching Cheers in your apartment instead of going to do something fun. Because every night might be the last time you can ever enjoy something.
Tagged
east williamsburg
everything you love will die
maybe rock and roll will actually die
shea stadium
David Colon
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