The Last Act: Southpaw Closing its Doors

Come late February, , a staple music venue on Fifth Avenue that has brought bands, groups and stand-up comics to Park Slope like TV On The Radio, Sufjan Stevens, KRS-One, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, Dave Chappelle, and hosts the monthly dance party, The Rub, will close its doors for good. 

The co-owner, Mikey Palms told The Brooklyn Paper that his venue is closing—to be replaced by a kids tutoring center and rock climbing center run by New York City Kids Club—because Park Slope is no longer a neighborhood for hard partiers and thumping bass lovers of the night.

“I’m kind of over Park Slope—it’s not a destination for nightlife anymore,” Palms told The Brooklyn Paper. “It’s time to go.”

Palms was not able to be reached for comment. 

But some Slopers disagree with Palms’ statement that the neighborhood’s nightlife is dead and think that better music venues in the area are the real reason Palms is packing it up.

Alex Johnson, a Park Slope resident, founder of La Chima Films, a husband and father of a three-year-old, said Park Slope still has a music scene, but it’s moving off Fifth Avenue and towards Gowanus.

“There hasn’t been a radical change in the neighborhood’s scene, I think it’s a matter of competition and one of the best venues is on Seventh Street,” Johnson said, referring to . “If there was a band I wanted to see at Southpaw, I’d go there. But the bands I like to listen to are now at The Bell House.”

He said the outfits that used to play at Southpaw, like The Dirtbombs and Reigning Sound, now rock out at the Seventh Street venue. Johnson said he also goes there to listen to the shows Norton Records, a Brooklyn-based label, puts on.  

Frank Gallo, the front man of Park Slope’s iconic children’s band, Rolie Polie Guacamole, who was supposed to have a release party for his group’s newest LP at Southpaw on February 26, was sad to hear that the venue is closing.

Gallo said Park Slope is not synonymous with late-night revelry, but did defend its nightlife.   

“I wouldn’t say nightlife is dead here, but it is certainly not the same neighborhood it was in the 1990s,” Gallo said, who lives in Windsor Terrace. “But when you go out to a bar in Park Slope it is packed. I think saying ‘there is no nightlife here’ is an overstatement and maybe an excuse of why they are closing.”

Gallo explained that he thinks that Southpaw is closing because real estate prices are going up and that means some places have to go, like , where his band did used to do sing-alongs.  

“I think it is more that people are getting priced out of Park Slope, not that there is no nightlife,” he said. 

The executive director of the Park Slope Fifth Avenue Business Improvement District, Irene LoRe, said she thinks Southpaw will close because of a combination of increasing rents and an unprecedented amount of competition.

“Park Slope is still a destination, but there are too many bars and restaurants on Fifth Avenue, we are completely oversaturated,” LoRe said, who owned Aunt Suzie’s, which she closed after more than two decades because of the increasing amount of new establishments flooding the avenue.

“In the 30 blocks of the Fifth Avenue BID there are close to 150 bars and restaurants,” LoRe said, referring to the strip between Dean and 18th streets.

“Times are tough, the recession is in its fourth year, so you combine oversaturation with a bad economy and it’s not a pretty picture,” she said, . “At the north end, you have people gearing up for the Barclays Center so rents are going sky high.”

She said it is unfortunate that Southpaw is closing, but she stressed that it’s not because the Slope doesn’t have a nightlife. In fact, she thinks it’s the opposite.

“There are simply too many damn restaurants and bars,” she said. 

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