Village Loses Icon As Famed Cornelia Street Cafe Closes

WEST VILLAGE, NY — Beloved bohemian venue the Cornelia Street Cafe will close its doors in January after 41 years in the Village.

The West Village mainstay opened in 1977 by three artists — Charles McKenna, Raphaela Pivetta and Robin Hirsch — who founded the cafe as a sort of art gallery and performance space at 29 Cornelia St. between Bleecker and W. Fourth streets.

Hirsch is the cafe's last remaining owning and likened the closure to "losing my oldest child."

"Cornelia has brought me both joy and pain, and it is with a broken heart that I must bid her adieu," Hirsch said in a statement. He did not immediately return a request for further comment.

Hirsch did not reveal a reason for the closure, but it is well known that like many neighborhood institutions, the restaurant has struggled with its rent, which was $33,000 a month in 2017, The New York Times reported.

Over the years, the Cornelia Street Cafe grew from a single-room space with a toaster oven and a cappuccino machine to a hub of activity in the arts, attracting songwriters, musicians and poets to the venue. Young comedians John Oliver, Amy Schumer and Hannibal Buress tested their material at the cafe.

Jen Benka, the executive director of the Academy of American Poets, called the space "an important venue for poets, artists and musicians for the past 40 years," on Twitter.

The cafe is considered the birthplace of Off-Off-Broadway, was where Eve Ensler launched the Vagina Monologues and where Philippe Petit, the "Man on Wire," strung a wire from a tree outside the cafe and famously danced across it while juggling.

Many a performer sang their first songs in the cafe and its basement, which was cleared to make way for a performance space in the '80s, and has hosted some 700 shows a year, according to the restaurant.

One of the Cafe's regular performers, jazz pioneer David Amram, praised the venue's importance to the neighborhood's cultural history and decried its closure, he said in a statement.

"This special place cannot be allowed to close, it's too important," said Amram. "What a shame and what a loss it would be."

The Cornelia Street Cafe will close on Jan. 2, 2019. Until then, it is open at 29 Cornelia Street from Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 11:45 p.m.; Fridays and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 a.m.

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