The Phoenix Concert Theatre is a nightclub and concert venue located at 410 Sherbourne Street in

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, Canada. It is large and encompasses three distinct environments. The "Main Room" features one of the city's largest dance floors, leading edge sound and light, five bars (including a marble bar), 20x30 foot stage, a giant projection screen and one of the largest mirror balls in Canada. "Le Loft" overlooks the main room, features an overhanging balcony which stretches the entire width of the club, lounge seating for over 100, and its own separate bar, custom artwork, and two television screens. The "Parlour" is reachable from the main room and the front entrance, features a separate sound system, a separate dancefloor and lighting system, a decorative bar, lounge seating and four pool tables.

History

The building originally served as the German-Canadian Club Harmonie, a rental venue for community gatherings,

oom-pah Oom-pah, Oompah or Umpapa is an onomatopoeic term describing the rhythmical sound of a deep brass instrument in combination with the response of other instruments or registers in a band, a form of background ostinato. The oom-pah sound is usua ...

bands, and ballroom dancing. By the early 1980s, the venue caught the eye of veteran

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

-based hospitality entrepreneur Pat Kenny a.k.a. "The Bard of

Bleecker Street Bleecker Street is an east–west street in the New York City borough of Manhattan. It is most famous today as a Greenwich Village nightclub district. The street connects a neighborhood today popular for music venues and comedy, but which was ...

" who at the time had a stake in three well known

Manhattan Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...

nightclubs —

The Bitter End The Bitter End is a 230-person capacity nightclub, coffeehouse and folk music venue in New York City's Greenwich Village. It opened in 1961 at 147 Bleecker Street under the auspices of owner Fred Weintraub. The club changed its name to ''The Ot ...

and Kenny's Castaways in

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

as well as the Cat Club, considered by some to be the epicentre of the 1980s NYC

glam metal Glam metal (also known as hair metal or pop metal) is a subgenre of heavy metal that features pop-influenced hooks and guitar riffs, upbeat rock anthems, and slow power ballads. It borrows heavily from the fashion and image of 1970s glam r ...

scene. After being alerted to Toronto's Club Harmonie by friends at the

Village Gate The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Streets in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club in 1958, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large 1896 Chicago school (architec ...

, New York City venue that doubled as nightclub and dinner theatre, Kenny opened an offshoot location of the Village Gate in Toronto with Club Harmonie still holding court in a small space within the building. After a few unsuccessful productions, the dinner theatre folded, and Kenny began renting the entire building to open a nightclub.

The Diamond

In early summer 1984, The Diamond Club took over the premises. Initially open Thursdays through Saturdays, and modelled on the Cat Club, it was overseen day-to-day by Randy Charlton whom Kenny got to run the newly launched club, hiring Charlton away from Sparkles discothèque at the top of the

CN Tower The CN Tower (french: Tour CN) is a concrete communications and observation tower in downtown Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Built on the former Railway Lands, it was completed in 1976. Its name "CN" referred to Canadian National, the railway c ...

having originally gone to Sparkles with the intent of luring its weekend resident DJ, Paul Cohen, over to the Diamond. Simultaneously, a staff of some fifty individuals had also been hired to work under the Diamond's general manager Charlton, developing and maintaining a theatrical, versatile venue with high-quality sound and lighting. Reflecting the ambiance of Kenny's New York clubs, the Diamond's interior stood out on Toronto's nightclub scene, differing significantly from the standard brass-and-mirrors decor of numerous clubs in the city at the time. During its first year of operation, the Diamond functioned just as a dance club with concerts held only occasionally. Food was served in a restaurant located at the back of the club, in a room that became known as The Grapevine.

References

External links

Phoenix Concert Theatre website"Why We Love The Phoenix" from The Culturatti
* {{Authority control Music venues in Toronto Nightclubs in Toronto