Hugh's Room
World Music | |
Seating type | theatre style |
---|---|
Capacity | 200 |
Construction | |
Built | 1894 |
Opened | September 2023 (original venue April 2001) |
Website | |
Hugh's Room |
Hugh's Room is a live music venue in Toronto, Ontario.[1] Formerly on Dundas Street West until 2020, as of July 2023 it has relocated to Broadview Avenue in the city's East Chinatown neighbourhood.[2]
The club was opened in 2001 by Richard Carson and named in memory of his brother Hugh, a former folk musician who had dreamed of opening his own performance venue before his death of cancer in 1999.[3]
Primarily a
On January 8, 2017, Hugh's Room closed its doors for financial reasons.[4] Several days later, a community committee announced plans to restructure the venue's accumulated debt and reopen.[7] The club reopened in April 2017, following a successful fundraising initiative and the formation of a non-profit committee to manage the venue.[5] The new corporation is called Hugh's Room Live.
In 2020, the Hugh's Room management announced that it was looking for a new building as it could not secure an affordable lease at its current site.[8]
After a lengthy effort and the support of over 1000 individual donors, Hugh's Room secured its new home at 296 Broadview Avenue in the Riverdale/East Chinatown neighbourhood of the city's East End. In addition to operating as an independent and not-for-profit charitable music venue, Hugh's Room has plans to build their new larger facility into a community based music "hub" for the development of new talent in addition to its many legacy artists.
References
- ^ a b "Hugh's Room anchored Toronto’s grassroots folk scene". Toronto Star, January 10, 2017.
- ^ "Hugh's Room - blogTO - Toronto". www.blogto.com. Retrieved October 3, 2023.
- ^ "Requiem for Hugh’s Room: Much-loved folkie venue a victim of cash-flow problems". The Globe and Mail, January 16, 2017.
- ^ a b "Music community reeling from closure of west-end venue Hugh's Room". CBC News, January 8, 2017.
- ^ a b c "Hugh's Room to reopen April 19". Toronto Star, March 9, 2017.
- ^ Weiner, Tim (December 3, 2008). "Odetta, Voice of Civil Rights Movement, Dies at 77". The New York Times (December 3). Retrieved December 3, 2008.
- ^ "Hugh's Room Reveals Plans to Restructure and Reopen". Exclaim!, January 12, 2017.
- ^ Staff, N. O. W. (March 5, 2020). "Hugh's Room Live forced to move due to rising rent". NOW Magazine.