After being shut down by the city and then robbed on back to back days, Bushwick’s Silent Barn managed to rebuild at a new space on Bushwick Avenue. Now though, the venue will have to turn to rebuilding again, because it was suffered a fire in the third floor apartment space on Friday night. According to a Facebook statement put out by the venue, no one was hurt, but possessions were lost and shows will have to be relocated while the people who lived at and ran the Silent Barn figure out how to rebuild the space. You can help with that part though.
In a lengthy statement after what the Silent Barn is saying what was an electrical fire, venue organizers said that the upstairs apartments and main performance space suffered from water damage, and won’t be able to host shows for the foreseeable future. The venue/art space’s management said that they’re covered by insurance for the space itself, but also wrote that “The most pressing financial concern is the loss of income from empty apartments and no shows downstairs. This will probably cost us tens of thousands of dollars and could potentially also cost us the space we’ve worked so hard to create.”
To try to stem the bleeding, cash donations are being collected on the website to cover lost income from the venue’s inability to put on shows while they renovate, with the hope to raise between $15,000 and $25,000. The venue is also collecting for apartment residents who weren’t covered by the insurance and have to replace personal belongings, which you can donate to by emailing Hillary Reeves (hillaryjoreeves [AT] gmail.com).
If you’d like to be a bit more hands on with your help, the Silent Barn is organizing people through a Helptagon page, with organizing groups being put together to cover everything from help hauling things to a storage facility, coordinating volunteers, managing whatever donations come in, physically getting the space ready for contractors, putting together benefit shows and finding new spaces for shows that were scheduled there.
Venue management have promised to share updates on where the shows will be relocated to, which we’ll keep you updated on. Organizers from educational non-profit The Creative Cycle were planning to have a a show featuring PWR BTTM, Freind and others to raise money for the Bushwick School of Music, and have reached out to us to let us know that it will be held on October 6 at Shea Stadium. In addition to the ticket sales benefiting the Bushwick School of Music, a bake sale will be taking place to raise money for the Silent Barn. A benefit show for the venue itself has already been thrown together, with O+O+, Body Horror, Lea Bertucci and Muscular performing at Bohemian Grove (64-66 Grove Street, Bushwick), with a pay-what-you-can donation admittance. We’ll make sure to update you on any other benefit shows/opportunities on this page as their details are released.
UPDATE
We’ve got a couple more ways to help out the Silent Barn. Photographer Walter Wlodarczyk is selling 8″ x 12″ prints of pictures he’s taken at the Silent Barn (which you can see here) for $25 each, with the proceeds going towards the venue. Local punk rockers Big Ups are also helping out, with any money raised from their pay-what-you-want album on Bandcap being donated to the Silent Barn.