 
|
|||||||||||||
              
|
Beehive shut; Oakland club's future in doubt
Wednesday, May 16, 2001 By Caroline Abels, Post-Gazette Cultural Arts Writer
The Beehive, an Oakland club and concert venue, was shut Monday for an unspecified amount of time, throwing the future of the Forbes Avenue landmark into question and forcing a number of bands that were scheduled to play there this week to find alternative venues.
Steve Zumoff, co-owner of the Beehive along with Scott Kramer, declined to comment on the situation. But Ed Traversari of SFX, a concert promoter, said SFX was called at 4 p.m. Monday as the band Slaves on Dope was setting up at the Beehive.
They were told the show was not going to happen.
"We're trying to figure out an alternative site, put them in another venue or re-schedule if the dates don't work," Traversari said of the SFX-promoted bands that were booked at the Beehive this week.
The lobby of the Beehive, seen from behind the locked front doors of the club, appeared in disarray yesterday and the bar looked as if it had been stripped of its alcohol. The Beehive also houses another small club, the Pollinator.
About 20 artists, performers and supporters of the Beehive gathered yesterday afternoon in front of the Oakland Avenue offices of Oakland Real Estate Co., the Beehive's landlord. Many of the protesters blamed the company for the closing.
A woman who answered the phone yesterday at the real estate firm declined to comment.
Singer Phat Man Dee, who worked as a janitor at the Beehive for 10 years before she began singing on the stage there in 1998, was on hand for the demonstration, as was Christina Springer of Suncrumbs, a group that fosters interdisciplinary arts projects and that often held performances at the Beehive.
"Steve is one of the few club owners in Pittsburgh who has a vision for the arts in Pittsburgh, who cares about showing multiple voices, who doesn't show the same stuff all the time," Springer said.
Most of the protesters lamented the apparent loss of a club that supported local artists, and some were noting that Graffiti, another popular club in Oakland, closed last year.
"Because of its central location [near the University of Pittsburgh], it gives artists from all over Pittsburgh a chance to present their work to their peers," said artist and demonstrator Rob Long.
Brian Stoneman, the promoter of a German band called Silent Force, was at the protest, working his cell phone to find a place for the band to play on Saturday.
The protesters reported having seen people moving things out of the Beehive into a van earlier in the afternoon.
|
||||||||||||
