The Scene At Silo

The room was full of errant possibility. Between plumes of chalky smoke, the converted electrical shop filled slowly, dominated by lines of oversized, de rigueur puffy jackets. The night before had been the coldest in recent memory. A decade ago, the hangar had been home to an electrical contracting shop. Now, it’s across the street from a bar that specializes in mead, and blocks further away from new clubs like the House of Yes and Brooklyn Made.

Now, the hanger on Scott Avenue has become a nightclub itself, announcing its public opening this month. It had been the long-gestating project of a handful of promoters, including Alex Neuhausen and Lillly Wolfson, who both stridently told a board of concerned community board members back in 2019 that the neighborhood of repurposed industrial warehouses was, in fact, not a “hellhole,” as described by the then-dubious chairman of the board’s State Liquor Authority review subcommittee. Back then, the club had been called “the Secret Loft,” and in the years since, it would organize furtively inside the shuttered loft on long late nights in the neighborhood.

Now, it’s called Silo, a name that appears burning brightly in neon above the door. The abandonment of ‘10s-era DIY nomenclature felt somehow fitting, reducing the name to an abstract two syllables brought to mind another club right around the block, the larger Elsewhere, which also prominently occupies former industrial space. What all of these clubs have in common is their determination to keep existing, pushing forward from the far-flung corners of the neighborhoods they once transformed.

“Yeah, I could see this turning into something,” I hear someone say while effortlessly pushing aside the light, plastic doors that divide the brightly-lit bar from the smokeshow in the other room. At the center of that room, a lineup of local DJs like Bill Patrick and Vivian Wang interchangeably delve deep into techo’s possibilities for encouraging sustained movement. More notable bookings lay ahead in the club’s early schedule, which includes a set later this month from ‘90s acid house king Josh Wink celebrating the history of the early hip hop and dance label, Nervous Records. Further bonafides can be investigated by way of the 201-song playlist “of underground techno and house tracks” the club put up on Spotify late last year.

Dancing conspicuously in one corner is a self-described “multidisciplinary artist, vocalist, curator, event planner and tour manager” named Rhiannon Catalyst, her arms lifting up and down inside a kind of silver, shimmering dress that reflected the beams of light that traced the floor. A promoter herself, she says she runs in the same circles as the people who developed Silo and tells me that it’s the first time she’s seen the room filled, after years of just dancing there with her friends.

Further in front of her is a stage. Twice, that night, it was occupied by an aerialist named Ariel Iasevoli, who silently dangled in various angles before leaving. This was impressive, and even more so for being entirely unexplained. (Per her own website: “She’s a chimerical cyborg made of bubblegum, glitter, and surgical steel.”)

Silo is located at 90 Scott Avenue. Their full schedule can be found here.