Many famed New York City music venues have come and gone over the years. One such club that never seemed to achieve as much as notoriety as its peers was The Bottom Line. For nearly three decades, this Greenwich Village club housed some of the biggest names in music and was considered a New York City institution.
While the Bottom Line didn’t necessarily help shape a genre like CBGB did with punk or the Savoy Ballroom did with swing, it featured a wider array of music overall.
The Bottom Line seated around 400-450 people and was famous for doing two shows a night. It was a fertile starting ground for a number of rising stars and featured a diverse line-up of star-studded performers including but not limited to Prince, Dolly Parton, Miles Davis and Patty Smith.
Another interesting tidbit? The club had a no-smoking policy long before that restriction became New York City law. (I wonder how the rock stars abided by those rules…)
The Beginnings of the Bottom Line
Childhood friends Stanley Snadowski and Allan Pepper opened The Bottom Line in 1974. The club was located at 15 W. Fourth Street in Greenwich Village in Manhattan, at the corner of Mercer.
In an interview with USA Today, Pepper explained his vision with the club.
“What we wanted was an intimate place where people could sit and listen to music,” Pepper says. “We designed the place so it was almost like an intimate theater. Also, we took the attitude that what we were selling is music. We never had a minimum. There was just an admission when people came in. You could sit and listen to music all night. If you didn’t want to eat and drink, nobody hassled you. We were about music.”
The Bottom Line’s name is a bit of a double entendre. In the record industry, the “bottom line” of course refers to profit. But Pepper said more so when it came to his club, the phrase stood for quality.
“What is the bottom line? It’s the essence,” Pepper stated.
The club was a success from the get-go. On the opening night New Orleans musician, Dr. John lit up the stage accompanied by none other than Steve Wonder and Johnny Winter as guest performers. The crowd itself was packed with big name artists like Mick Jagger and Carly Simon.
The New York Times wrote of the performance: “Dr. John officially opened the new Bottom Line club on West Fourth Street on Tuesday to a rock‐celebrity crowded audience.”
Bruce Springsteen and the Bottom Line
It is impossible to speak of The Bottom Line without mentioning Bruce Springsteen. Back in 1975, Springsteen put on a now iconic five-day run of shows that solidified him as a powerhouse performer and launched him into greater stardom. The shows took place between August 13th-17th, just one week before the release of his third studio album Born To Run.
While Springsteen had already amassed a cult following, many critics still weren’t convinced. But his undeniable swagger and unbelievable live shows at The Bottom Line changed the wider public’s tune. He performed two shows a day (one in the afternoon and one in the evening.) One particular performance was broadcast live on WNEW-FM and attracted major media attention. Just a few months later, Springsteen landed himself on the covers of Time and Newsweek. Springsteen himself credits the venue for helping his rise to stardom.
But The Boss was far from the only rock icon to grace The Bottom Line. While The Bottom Line only housed a few hundred patrons a night, it was precisely this intimacy and the ability to see artists up close and personal that gave the venue its charm. Artists recognized this too and frequently returned to the club to perform. Lou Reed recorded his album Live: Take No Prisoners there. Harry Chapin held his 2000th concert at The Bottom Line in January 1981. Comedians also performed at The Bottom Line including an up-and-coming Jerry Seinfeld.
The End of an Era
Owners Snadowski and Pepper made the decision to close the club in 2004 due to rising rent prices and declining crowds. The two had long leased the building from NYU but when rent was raised the owners found themselves owing nearly $200,000 in back rent.
Bruce Springsteen himself offered to pay off the debt.
“The Bottom Line has made itself a central part of New York City culture,” Springsteen wrote in a post at the now defunct website, savethebottomline.com. “When I think of the most memorable nights in my own career, few match the week of shows we did there in 1975. As a musician, as a citizen, and as one who loves New York City, I truly hope that a solution can be found that allows The Bottom Line and Allan and Stanley to continue their important, valuable work for many years to come.”
Sadly, the owners and NYU still could not agree on the terms of the new lease and the club closed its doors just 3 weeks shy of 30 years of operation. The building now houses NYU classrooms.
Snadowski passed away in 2013. Pepper has continued to allow The Bottom Line’s legacy to live on in the internet age. He maintains the website, the Bottom Line Archive, which contains a treasure trove of over 1,000 shows recorded at the club in its long history. It features performances from The Brecker Brothers, Joey Ramone, Pete Seeger and many more.
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