Don Hill's Closes Its Doors For Good

Don Hill's Closes Its Doors For Good

The New York Post reports that the Greenwich Village bar Don Hill's is closing one month after its founder, Don Hill, passed away.

In September the club was reopened and re-imagined by nightlife impresarios Nur Khan and Paul Sevigny (of Beatrice fame), and tried to reignite the fading glory of the bar. The New York Press wrote about its facelift back in December:

Don Hill's infrastructure has definitely gotten a tune-up. Formerly two dingy rooms, consisting of a bar and stage, the space has been blacked out, laser-filled and smoke injected. Blinding strobes go off every few minutes. At 3 a.m. on a recent Friday, the dance floor was still filled and the bells and whistles--as well as bassheavy techno mixes of alt-rock favorites-- kept the crowd moving, if slowly. The disconnect created by foggy blackness interspersed with seconds of blinding white is jarring; and taken together with a booming, bass-heavy rock soundtrack, there was a stoned, E-fueled vibe.

Then, in March, the club's founderDon Hill died, but the bar had since hosted some impressive fetes, including last weekend's after party for TriBeCa Film Festival entry "Jesus Henry Christ."

But all the glitz and sparkles couldn't save Hill's. The bar's doors closed on Monday "for good," says the Post. "I will be sad to see the doors close," Khan told the Post, "as it was such a passion project for me."

Don Hill's was, in its heyday, a hip playground for Manhattan hipsters in the early-mid aughts, and reached its zenith of 'coolness' when the dance party MisShapes moved in there.

MisShapes turned the club, Luke & Leroy (and, later, nearby Don Hill's), into an exuberant Never Never land, where Wendys were welcome in many shapes and sizes, but the Peters were almost invariably pubescently thin. It quickly became a hit with an asexual crowd of lissome, wired-up kids in complicated vest-and-scarf arrangements.

When Khan took over Don Hill's, he spoke to Elle about how bored with New York nightlife he was at the time, and his hopes for the space:

"I'm so bored," Khan complains about the last decade of New York nightlife. "It's so unimaginative and uncreative and it's like you don't need a slick room with bottle service and promoters and this and that." He talks nostalgically about Don Hill's as the perfect venue to bring back the downtown vibe of CBGB's, Max's Kansas City and The Mudd Club. "The time couldn't be better to drop this little bomb on everybody. Everybody is so used to the same formula. It's like, let's get down and dirty. This is raw and it's gritty."

The space has since been turned over to developers, Khan says.

Hill's also saw a slew of impressive performers throughout the years. Brooklyn Vegan has a good collection of concert footage from the club here.

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