Good Room

The building that stopped being Europe

Club Europa closed at 98 Meserole Avenue and, in October 2014, the same Greenpoint building began to rehearse another night. The bet was not to add one more concert hall to Brooklyn, but a dance club fused with the neighborhood bar: real dance floor, door without pose, and a community that treated the venue like home. The designer Steve Lewis, also author of the layout of Marquee in Manhattan, organized the space in several rooms when going up a flight of stairs. The main room concentrates booth, wide dance floor, stage for live acts, smoke machines, and disco ball. It opens to another room dominated by a rectangular bar. To one side, a smaller lounge—the Bad Room—sets up another booth in front of a wall of vinyls that functions as a sound archive.

Two dance floors, two temperatures

The tension between the Good Room and the Bad Room is the true map of the club. In the main one, house, disco, and techno rule; in the annex, more lateral turns, all-night sessions, and parties that do not need the focus of the big room fit. That logic of two dance floors has sustained residencies like FIXED, by Joshua D. Houtkin (JDH) and David R. Pianka (Dave P), and The Carry Nation, in addition to nights linked to Love Games, XOXA, or Razor-N-Tape. Kim Ann Foxman, Martyn, Quantic, Octo Octa, Willie Burns, Justin Strauss, Eli Escobar, Tim Sweeney, Tony Humphries, John Talabot, or Juan Maclean have passed through the booth, along with a local circuit that uses the venue to extend sets and test material. The club presents itself as an open and inclusive space: it does not admit racism, homophobia, or discrimination, and asks to notify the staff if someone is harassed.

A d&b and a decade that had to be fought for

The main system is d&b audiotechnik installed by Oxygen Eventworks: eight Q1, four Q-Sub, and four 18-inch double B2s on the big dance floor, with support from JBL line array; the Bad Room works with QSC, JBL, and Danley Labhorn subwoofers. That obsession with sound became an argument for survival. After eighteen months closed due to the pandemic, Good Room reopened on September 10, 2021. Without the federal aid it expected, programmer Josh Houtkin warned of months of back rent. James Murphy and Pat Mahoney, from LCD Soundsystem, DJed a benefit night; Nancy Whang and other houses in the city followed. The club held on. In 2024 it celebrated a decade in Greenpoint, with membership cards and a sister bar, Good Bar. It continues to program weekends—and occasional Thursdays—of dance floor electronics, with a live calendar.