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Maintaining Bushwick venue a constant struggle

By Miranda Siegel | Special to amNewYork

January 14, 2008

Steve Trimboli, owner of Goodbye Blue Monday, an upcoming hot spot where customers can enjoy live music every night of the week, use the internet cafe, and buy second hand thrift items and collectibles located in Bushwick. (Melanie Fidler / December 12, 2007)

When Steve Trimboli opened his performance venue Goodbye Blue Monday -- the first of its kind in Bushwick -- he enticed young people far and wide to make the trip out to perform and fraternize in the unique space.

"Steve is the pied piper of Bushwick," said Drew Grant, who bartends at Goodbye Blue Monday. "He provides the music, and they come. He's shaped the area by helping the community develop without exclusivity in clientele."

But when Trimboli, who also owned the former 1980s West Village hot spot Scrapbar, was diagnosed with cancer -- from "environmental causes," as he puts it -- back in April, he faced a summer of invasive, exhausting radiation and chemotherapy treatments.

After Trimboli broke the news to his staff, they began working long hours to pick up the slack.

"I was depressed about it," Grant said. "I worked overtime and did everything I could -- all the staff did. No one wanted to see the place go."

Indeed, the music community is rallying around Trimboli. Two benefit concerts were held recently, and though neither raised nearly enough money to solve the venue's problems, both have raised awareness.

John Chavez, who runs a booking agency, came up with the idea for a benefit at Ridgewood's Silent Barn. He praises Trimboli's open-minded approach to booking events.

"Steve's the grandfather of the weird Bushwick music scene," Chavez said. "Everyone loves Goodbye Blue Monday. He's poured his life into the place." Trimboli's lack of health insurance and poor credit history have been hard on him financially as well.

"My landlords have cut me slack since Goodbye Blue Monday is bringing people to the area," he said. "Which means more money for them. You could toss a cat in any direction and it would hit one of their buildings."

Trimboli's comfort with the surroundings has allowed him to co-exist in a neighborhood that's not always hospitable to his venue and the crowds it draws. However, maintaining a large, isolated venue in a sketchy part of town -- a stretch of Broadway underneath the elevated JZ line -- has been difficult.

"Once I came back to the store," Trimboli recalled, "and my car window was smashed up."

He added, "You can't do much about it. That's sort of the relationship I have with the neighborhood; there are things you just have to accept."

But during his treatments, Trimboli, worn down from the chemo, 25 pounds thinner and nursing himself on a miserable diet consisting almost entirely of the liquid supplement Ensure, struggled to hold down the fort.

"Everything had become an effort: waking up, sleeping, being alive," said Trimboli. "I knew I hit rock bottom this one night when I tossed out three kids who kept coming in and stealing from me. I turn around and see one is holding a gun in my face -- sideways, like he learned from the movies or something."

"At this point I'm so exhausted from the chemo, I don't even care if he shoots me."

The concerts last month at Silent Barn and Grasslands, a Williamsburg venue and artspace, speak to the value of Trimboli's space.

"In many ways, they're one and the same: Steve and Goodbye Blue Monday," said Russ Waterhouse, who helped organize the show at Silent Barn. "If you're down to earth, if you're openminded, Steve will talk to you."

When asked how he figured out the right formula to support the current scene, Trimboli maintains that it was purely intuitive.

"I knew with Scrapbar," he explained, recalling his former venue's role in the highest days of party excess. "And I know now."