March 29, 2007
SIN-É, FINIS
These New York Times elegies for lost neighborhood institutions are beginning to pack all the poignancy of a roll-call, but it's still nice that they do them. Lower East Side club Sin-é is closing its doors this Sunday, unable to keep up with the Joneses that have moved in around it.
Yes, another one bites the dust: Sin-é (pronounced shih-NAY), after a weekend of goodbye shows, will close for good on Sunday. Over two decades and three locations, the owner, Shane Doyle, maintained it as a cozy, unassuming place for up-and-coming musical acts, charting the perimeters of gentrifying areas as surely as Starbucks now defines them. But two months ago, as wealthy neighbors and city and state regulators encroached, he decided his low-key vision was out of step.
“I look at this block, and I know it’s over,” Mr. Doyle, 55, said in an interview in his club on Attorney Street near Stanton. Once an industrial stretch of liquor warehouses and auto-repair shops, that block is now within spitting distance of several million-dollar apartment complexes. When those buildings’ residents started calling to complain of noise and crowds, he knew. “Then the obvious thing is, O.K., let me go somewhere else,” he said. “But I can’t find somewhere else. And even if I could the lifespan would be too short.”
I liked Sin-é. The short depth of the club combined with the height of the stage provided good sightlines regardless of where you were standing, and if you could grab a seat at the far end of the bar, all the better. Something I learned from the Times piece: Sin-é is Gaelic for "That's it."
(Photo from Crackers United at Flickr)
Tagged: club, les, sin-éPosted by Lexiphane at March 29, 2007 9:26 AM
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