By Katarina Hybenova
It was almost exactly a year ago when we informed you that The Morgan, a cool new music venue, restaurant and a bar was opening on Bogart Street in Bushwick. Today Bushwick twitters were buzzing about The Morgan being shut down….
The #bushwickarts " great art, great energy and great artists doing their own thing" - @artfagcity
— Terri Ciccone (@TerriCiccone) January 20, 2012
RUMOUR ;-) @bushwicknation says The Morgan has vanished from the Earth surface....
— bushwick daily (@BushwickDaily) April 27, 2012
FACT instead of RUMOUR: The owner of The Morgan says they are closed but will re-open in a couple of months w new management. thank god.
— bushwick daily (@BushwickDaily) April 27, 2012
Last year we rushed to interview The Morgan’s a co-owner Richard Guishard about this promising new venue. Richard told us a lot good stuff and created a lot of expectations among the Bushwick folk:
[box]Bushwick Daily: Do you plan to have weekly events?
The Morgan: Yes, definitely, we will have concerts… We want to target Bushwick and Williamsburg people, maybe also people from Manhattan. Depending on the type of the event and on the promoter.
Bushwick Daily: What will be your music preference here?
The Morgan: I don’t have a particular music inclination, but I want this place to be a reflection of the neighborhood. I want people to contribute. I want local bands, but also performances, lectures… I want this to be a community center. I see you have art hanging on the walls… Yes, we will be having rotating exhibitions.[/box]
Soon after BushwickBK.com [RIP] brought a less than stellar review of the place titling it Swanky But A Little Sloppy.
Anyway, long story short: The Morgan experienced several drastic changes through its history. To name a few, let’s remember the surprising tranformation of the menu from a sort of a burger place to a Thai restaurant; or the change in vibe from an indie music venue to a kind of Manhattan company party venue. The force behind these changes was, according to Richard Guishard, the management he hired for the place to make the venue financially sustainable. Today we spoke with Richard on the phone about the reasons for closing The Morgan. “People felt alienated there. I was receiving too many complaints about the people who ran the place,” he said. We have to agree. The Morgan wasn’t really on the radar of too many Bushwick locals on a Friday night. Richard also told us that he plans to re-open the place in a couple of months but with the vision he originally had. He wants the place to be ran by local people from the neighborhood as opposed to the Bronx crowd. We couldn’t agree more with the decision! In words of Bushwick Nation….
@BushwickDaily We should start charging for consulting on these places before they open.
— Bushwick Nation (@BushwickNation) April 27, 2012
