The VIllage Gate Sign still adorns the corner of Thompson and Bleecker streets, January 2006
The Village Gate was a nightclub at the corner of Thompson and Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village, New York. Art D'Lugoff opened the club the late 1950s, on the ground floor and basement of 160 Bleecker Street. The large Beaux Arts structure built in 1896 by renowned architect Ernest Flagg. was known at the time as Mills House No. 1 and served as a flophouse for transient men.
Throughout its 38 years the Village Gate featured such greats asJohn Coltrane, Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. Aretha Franklin made her first New York appearance there.
The Village Gate closed in 1995. The space is currently occupied by CVS/Pharmacy
Trivia[]
The Village Gate was a stop on the Greenwich Village Walking Tour, in part because Bob Dylan wrote A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall in September 1962 in the basement.