The Cornelia Street Cafe, was a restaurant & bar at 29
Cornelia Street in New York City's
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 ...
, opened in July 1977. The cafe closed at the end of 2018, due to rising rents from the gentrification of the West Village; ending on its holiday closed day of New Years 2019.
[ ] The cafe had been voted one of the best places to listen to
jazz music
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a maj ...
in the world.
[
]
Business
In the 21st century, the Cornelia Street Cafe was a restaurant and nightclub, showcasing musicians, poets, writers, and artists. In 1998, the Cafe was one of the restaurants recognized by the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Village Preservation (formerly the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation, or GVSHP) is a non-profit organization which advocates for the preservation of architecture and culture in several neighborhoods of Lower Manhattan, New York. ...
with a Village Award presented to "Cornelia Street Restaurants".
Songwriters Exchange
In December 1977 the then-fledgling cafe hosted the first meeting of the Songwriters Exchange, a weekly gathering in which the Village's songwriters could present their new songs--and only new songs--to their peers. Two years later the cafe sponsored "Cornelia Street: The Songwriters Exchange," an LP of eight Village singer-songwriters; released by Stash Records, the LP was named "Album Of The Month" by Stereo Review in December 1979, and was later re-released as a cd. It has the first known recordings of several prominent Village artists, including Cliff Eberhardt, David Massengill, Rod MacDonald
Rod MacDonald (born August 17, 1948) is an American singer-songwriter, novelist, and educator. He was a "big part of the 1980s folk revival in Greenwich Village clubs", performing at the Speakeasy, The Bottom Line, Folk City, and the "Songwr ...
, Martha Hogan, Michael Fracasso, Brian Rose, Eliot Simon and Lucy Kaplansky (as Simon & Kaplansky), and was Tom Intondi's second recorded work.
References
External links
Cornelia Street Cafe
{{coord, 40.731348, -74.002391, type:landmark_region:US-NY, display=title
Music venues in Manhattan
Former music venues in New York City
Nightclubs in Manhattan
Defunct nightclubs in New York (state)
Greenwich Village
Restaurants in Manhattan
Defunct restaurants in New York City
1977 establishments in New York City
2019 disestablishments in New York (state)
Restaurants established in 1977
Restaurants disestablished in 2019