Bleecker Bell

Bleecker Bell is a new 200-capacity live music venue reactivating a storied stretch of Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, marking the neighborhood’s first new performance venue in two decades. Backed by the owners of Café Wha? And Village Presents, Mojo Stumer was presented with the opportunity to restore and reimagine 163 Bleecker Street, a building whose most recent life was as a Chinese restaurant before a fire left much of it in ruins — working hand in hand with the block’s landmark context to build a new venue up and around what remained.

Rather than clear the site, Mojo Stumer preserved the ground floor and load-bearing perimeter walls of the original building and built upward and outward. The facade is clad in a charcoal-infused reddish brick, paired with dark gray metal window frames, a dark gray granite base, and a matching dark gray canopy over the entrance. That same material language carries through to the building’s threshold: the exterior wraps and folds inward as it transitions into a double-height entry space, dissolving the line between the street and the room beyond.

Inside, two materials do most of the talking: perforated and non-perforated acoustic wood panels on the walls, and exposed steel — including a 55-foot steel beam supporting the mezzanine to provide unobstructed sightlines to the stage throughout the venue. The steel draws its language from the Industrial Revolution, balanced by soft furniture and fabrics that keep the room feeling comfortable rather than cold. The floors are polished concrete, keeping with that same industrial character.

Every material decision was made in service of the room’s acoustics: Mojo Stumer collaborated with SH Acoustics, simulating a 3D acoustic model of the space to shape the venue’s sound performance. Throughout, the design is distinctly New York in character, built to hold both the weight of the block’s history and the next generation of the Village’s music scene.