Upper Westside Jazz Club Cleopatra’s Needle: Another Cultural Casualty Among Many

By Marilyn Lester****They’re toppling like dominoes—long-established restaurants and institutions that can’t keep up with the rising costs of doing business in Manhattan. Lately, the Boat Basin Cafe at 79th Street has shuttered after 22 years. In quick succession, the Upper East Side artsy French bistro Demarchelier has closed after 41 years, Chelsea Flea after 40 years, and after 30 years, Union Square’s Coffee Shop and City Bakery. One of the latest closures is Cleopatra’s Needle, a 30-year favorite as a jazz spot and restaurant on the Upper West Side. The day after it closed its doors at the end of December, a wrecking team demolished it in preparation for a new (undisclosed) tenant.

The great tragedy about Cleopatra’s Needle is that its demise further diminishes venues in which live music can be heard, and cheaply. The original had been a 1970s restaurant located further up on Broadway. In 1989 the business was purchased by Maher Hussein and his brother who moved it to its location on Broadway at 92nd Street. Patrons could hear live music every night of the week, linger over Mediterranean fare or drink and pay no cover charge. For musicians, it was a place that freely welcomed them. They could come in and jam or sing; it was, in other words, a great jazz and music hang.

As to why this popular spot was forced to close, the reasons are several and only too commonly heard these days: escalating rents, higher minimum wages, business taxes, and other bureaucratic pressures, as well as a changing neighborhood demographic, as New York increasingly become a city for the ultra-wealthy. In an interview, Maher Hussein said, “You name it, we faced it. It became unbearable, especially the rent.”

The implications are obvious. Over the last decade especially, Manhattan has been drained of cultural significance, if not to say charm; and this cuts across several areas from food service to performance to retail. According to some sources (i.e. real estate/investment firm, CBRE Group), between 2010 and 2014 alone commercial rents in certain sections of New York soared by 89 percent—yet retail sales in the same period rose only 32 percent. Empty retail space in Manhattan doubled over the last decade. Yes, online shopping contributes to dipping brick and mortar sales, but it’s not the whole story. As Hussein noted, regulatory hurdles (such as the permit process and outdated zoning) are burdensome to small business owners. SoHo, for instance, is still zoned as a manufacturing district; anyone wanting to open a store or restaurant is therefore obliged to go through the City’s land review requirements, a process that can take up to three years.

Currently, a Brooklyn City Council member, Stephen Levi, is poised to introduce a bill to regulate commercial rents. Given probable challenges from vested interests and the complexity of the political process, it’s anyone’s guess if such legislation, if introduced, will succeed. New York City has had only one such regulation in its history: commercial rents were regulated from 1945 to 1963. The law was not renewed when it expired.

New York City continues apace to lose much more of what made it a singular and vibrant city, a premier global cultural destination. Already the diminishment of diners, small markets, Chinese restaurants, supermarkets, mom and pop retailers, independent movie houses, and live performance venues of all kinds—to name a few items—has made a dent on the uniqueness that has been New York. With architectural demolition rampant, empty storefronts, a plethora of banks and chain drugstores on every corner and the intrusion of big-box and giant chain retailers into the mix, Manhattan has been increasingly suburbanized.

It will be a tragic day indeed when the mighty City of New York becomes just like everywhere else.