Mojo Stumer designs Bleecker Bell, Greenwich Village’s first new music venue in nearly 20 years

Manhattan, NY Mojo Stumer Associates, a Long Island-based architecture and interior design firm, completed its role as designer of Bleecker Bell, a new 200-capacity live music venue opening this fall in Greenwich Village. Developed by the team behind Café Wha?,Groove, and Village Presents, Bleecker Bell marks the neighborhood’s first new music venue in nearly 20years.

Mojo Stumer was brought in to restore and reimagine 163 Bleecker St., a building whose most recent life was as a Chinese restaurant before a fire left much of the structure in ruins. Rather than clear the site, the firm preserved the ground floor and load-bearing perimeter walls of the original building, working hand in hand with the block’s landmark context to build a new venue up and around what remained. Located two blocks from Café Wha?, in Greenwich Village’s music scene, the project gave Mojo Stumer the opportunity to help write the next chapter of a stretch of Bleecker St. that helped launch Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix.

“This building had already lived a few lives on that block, and the fire could have easily been the end of it,” said Joe Yacobellis, partner at Mojo Stumer. “Instead,it gave us a starting point. We held onto the ground floor and let everything we built above it respond to the character of Bleecker St.”

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-ft. steel beam that holds up the mezzanine to provide unobstructed sight lines to the stage throughout the venue. The steel, alluding to the cast iron nature in the nearby village and Soho areas, is balanced by soft built-in-seating and fabrics that keep the room feeling comfortable rather than cold.

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.

“Live music is about connection,”said Yacobellis. “We designed Bleecker Bell so the architecture disappears into the experience, allowing the performers, the audience, and the energy of the room to take center stage.”

Bleecker Bell is slated to open this fall.