Last year, it birthed Brat Summer.
This summer, The Lot Radio (17 Nassau Ave.) seemed poised for a quieter season, as renovations prompted a months-long closure starting last October.
The bar and radio station just announced it would reopen on Friday, July 11. Though the radio station kept streaming over the past few months, the bar and cafe remained closed in order to bring it up to code with the city’s health and building departments.
“It has been an incredibly difficult time…The project has never been so fragile and on the verge of disappearing,” The Lot shared on Instagram, also thanking the city’s nightlife office for helping them find a solution.
And if you’re wondering how you can lend your support, they offer a few words of wisdom.
“Send friends our way, order 10 beers instead of one, offer a bottle to a stranger, over tip our lovely baristas… Make the Lot your summer hang and enjoy it as much as possible! We missed you and need you to make this season a special one.”
The independent non-profit radio station live streams 24/7 from a reclaimed shipping container. Francois Vaxelaire founded the station in 2016. The Lot previously faced health code challenges in 2019, when the department temporarily shut them down (turns out, a shipping container turned bar and radio station remains difficult for city agencies to classify, The Lot worked with the city to get up to speed).
LOT patrons who are likely to be among the very first to rightfully rail & rant against water, soil & air pollution are strangely silent when it comes to the NOISE pollution that emanates from open air music sources such as LOT that are adjacent to quiet residential areas. It’s arrogant & grossly insensitive, not to mention illegal, to blast music into people’s homes & neighborhoods. Music may indeed “soothe the savage beast” but please, go find yourself an out of the way warehouse where you can be soothed! As for LOT’s management encouraging patrons to “buy ten beers!”, don’t we already have enough inebriated, loud, and unruly bar patron relieving themselves on the streets & sidewalks of Greenpoint? Is LOT being a “non-profit” supposed to be some kind of get-out-of-jail free card? Heck, all too often I too wind up being “non-profit” – in this increasingly unaffordable city of supercilious gentrifiers, greedy landlords and rapacious developer!
Ethel – I think youre too old for the neighborhood