Legendary club owner Art D'Lugoff dies at 85

Art D'Lugoff at home in Knolls Crescent. Photo by Mekea Hurwitz Fishlin

By Kate Pastor

Art D’Lugoff led a life surrounded by a veritable who’s who of modern music, literature and comedy, but to family, friends and neighbors he was simply Art.

The Riverdale resident — owner of the famed Village Gate nightclub in Manhattan — died Nov. 4 at 85.

A celebrity in his own right, he nurtured the careers of such diverse artists as Miles Davis, Joan Baez, John Coltrane, Frank McCourt, Nina Simone, Woody Allen and Bill Cosby.

They were just a few of the largerthan- life stars who performed at the club he ran for more than 30 years at Thompson and Bleecker streets. He finally gave up the West Village venue in 1994 after his landlord went bankrupt.

Mr. D’Lugoff grew up in the Brighton Beach and Midwood sections of Brooklyn. He enlisted in U.S. Air force, which sent him to China during World War II. When he returned, he briefly lived in California before attending New York University on the G.I. Bill.

To make ends meet, he took jobs as a cab driver, tree pruner and PR man for an electrical union. He bused tables in the “Borscht Belt” in the Catskills on weekends and worked as a newspaper copyboy and researcher for reporters, including I.F. Stone at the now-defunct Daily Compass.

In 1955 he got his first taste of big time show business, organizing a midnight show at Circle in the Square with Pete Seeger, the then-blacklisted folk singer, as the headliner.

The venue had a capacity of 300 people and when the midnight show attracted numbers in the thousands, “he knew that he was on to something,” said his brother, Burt D’Lugoff.

He promoted shows featuring such talent as Louis Armstrong, Count Basie and Duke Ellington before he found a venue of his own.

In 1957, with his brother as a partner, he signed a lease on the basement of what was then the Mills Hotel at 160 Bleecker St. and began planning a new club — the Village Gate. He and his brother worked around the clock refurbishing the place.

“It’s how I got my beard,” Mr. D’Lugoff told The Press during an interview in 2005.

In addition to musicians, he booked comedians and put on off-Broadway shows like One Mo’ Time, nominated for a Grammy in 1979.

“He presented every kind of entertainment imaginable,” said longtime friend, Riverdale resident and jazz producer George Avakian, recalling unusual events like the first-ever performance of a Soviet jazz group and frequent poetry readings.

Art D’Lugoff famously first turned Bob Dylan down for sounding too much like Woody Guthrie. Later, he let him play at the Gate, and the iconic singer crashed in the basement where he wrote “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” in 1962.

Much of Art D’Lugoff’s life has been defined by the artists who surrounded him. But his brother Burt pointed out that Mr. D’Lugoff also had a passion for activism.

Rights marcher

He took part in Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala. with Langston Hughes and Nina Simone.

He was a founding member of the Village Independent Democrats, which broke the grip of the notorious Tammany Hall bosses on the party’s reigns of power.

He worked with Jane Jacobs, who organized Village residents against Robert Moses’ plan for a highway that would run through Washington Square Park.

He helped overturn an extortionate requirement that performers had to have cabaret cards and be fingerprinted to perform in New York.

He fought zoning battles that won approval for the outdoor cafes that are now hallmarks of the West Village and other vibrant parts of the city.

His beloved Village Gate closed in 1994. Later, Art opened the Village Gate II on 52nd Street, but it only stayed open for about year, his brother said.

“Art was never able to recover from that, no matter how he tried,” said Mr. Avakian.

Along with his wife of 50 years, Israeli-born Avital Achai, Mr. D’Lugoff moved from the Upper West Side to a Riverdale apartment on Henry Hudson Parkway in 2005.

“He loved Riverdale. He loved that little Knolls Crescent area. He loved all the restaurants around there,” his brother said.

Mr. D’Lugoff’s wife was recently sent to live at the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, and survives him, along with his children Raphael, Sharon, Dahlia and Rachel, his brother Burt and a large family in Israel.

A service for close family was held at the burial site at the Montefiore Cemeter y in Queens on Monday, and a memorial will be held at Poisson Rouge, on the site of the former Village Gate.

This is part of the November 12, 2009 online edition of The Riverdale Press.

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