Knitting Factory/Baker Falls Makes Return to Manhattan in 2023

Hospitality entrepreneur Nick Bodor and Knitting Factory Entertainment (KFE) have announced their first collaboration to bring a new neighborhood café, bar and performance space to the East Village, New York City and to the world: Baker Falls (pop.298) at the legendary 101 Avenue A, on the site of the former Pyramid Club. Baker Falls' performance space will house Knitting Factory Manhattan. The entertainment complex is scheduled to open in February 2023.

Nick Bodor has a proven track record creating and operating beloved, long-running spots in New York's East Village, including Cake Shop, The Library bar and alt.coffee, as well as Bruar Falls in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Bodor will serve as the managing partner and creative director of the enterprise. Combining all his previous projects' respective ethos into one gathering place that will cultivate its identity based on the long, illustrious history of 101 Avenue A, and Nick's love for the neighborhood he has called home since 1992 (and he has been loving the East Village since 1985!).

"With this joint venue, Knitting Factory and I are excited to explore the importance of creating a safe, fun, all-inclusive environment for everyone to gather morning, noon and night," Bodor says. "Baker Falls will have café service all day, happy hour drinks, great performances and even some late-night dancing. Can't wait to see you there."

With the current structure built in 1876, 101 Avenue A was purpose-built as a gathering space for the neighborhood. As the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation stated, "its ground floor long served as a hall where locals would gather to eat, celebrate, mourn, or discuss labor issues and neighborhood gossip." Many years later it gave birth to the all-inclusive East Village performance scene and was the birthplace of WigStock as well as the first NYC performances by Nirvana and RuPaul in the heyday of The Pyramid Club under manager Brian Butterick. Before 1876, the site housed a small single-story warehouse where Peter Dolger opened a brewery that brought Pilsner beer to America. The Pyramid announced it was closing its doors after 42 years on the site on October 31.

For its part, Knitting Factory opened its first location in a small, nondescript storefront on East Houston Street in 1987. A category-defining-and defying-venue, Knitting Factory both established a new standard for audacious, courageous, alternative programming and set the tone for small indie neighborhood spots that defined "downtown" to follow where Knitting Factory had dared to tread. That original Knitting Factory closed in 2009 and decamped to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where it held forth until this past August; the Knitting Factory Entertainment has since grown into a 360-degree entertainment company with a diversified portfolio of concert houses, bars, venues, restaurants and theatres, as well as divisions for management, recording label, booking and tour support. Earlier this month, Knitting Factory and partner Moon Block presented the tenth annual Desert Daze alternative music festival in California. Earlier this week, KFE announced it was opening a Knitting Factory-branded venue in Los Angeles for the first time in 13 years.

Knitting Factory Entertainment CEO Morgan Margolis added, "Of course it was a difficult decision to close our doors in Brooklyn due to rent escalations. However, finding a partner in Nick Bodor, former owner/operator of the iconic Cake Shop music venue, to team up and collaborate with us has been fantastic. And, having personally grown up in East Village and planting our flag back in Manhattan where it all started brings a lot of things full circle for us and for the brand."

Following the formal closure of The Pyramid on Halloween night, 101 Avenue A's existing facilities will undergo a thorough renovation, including improved staging and massively upgraded audio-visual production. Reprising their roles from Williamsburg, the venue will be booked by Knitting Factory's Carson Ehlert with support from Senior Talent Buyer James Irvine. Ehlert says, "Although closing the Williamsburg location was difficult, I couldn't be more excited about putting together interesting shows, developing new artists, bringing communities together, and continuing Knitting Factory's unique legacy in the East Village. It's been a delight to work with James and Morgan thus far and I'm looking forward to collaborating with them and Nick in making the new Knitting Factory a pillar of music and nightlife culture in Lower Manhattan for years to come." Programming is set to begin in February 2022.