Impresario Has Designs on Wall Street
by Carl Glassman

In an empty and august Wall Street space, with its marble columns and 30-foot ceiling, Michael Dorf was taking a visitor on a tour of his next Downtown dream: a 1,500-seat club. “Carnegie Hall with a wine list,” he calls it.

Here, about 20 blocks south of the Knitting Factory, the jazz and rock club on Leonard Street he founded 16 years ago and left as CEO in February, Dorf wants to make his mark on Wall Street with what could be the first big cultural catalyst for the renewal of Lower Manhattan.

By his own estimate, the new venue—with such headliners as Sonny Rollins, Lou Reed and Nora Jones—would bring 40,000 people a month to an area that now shuts its doors after dark.

Gesturing toward the room’s imposing arched windows, Dorf detailed his plans to put a curved balcony with loges, and perhaps a couple of private VIP boxes. Then he walked to the other end of the room, his footsteps echoing through the cavernous space. Here he envisions a 1,000-square-foot stage, three times bigger than the Knitting Factory’s, and flexible space for the audience, with tables, theater seats or standing room. “I’m walking through here in a weird way," said Dorf, his eyes wide with possibilities. “In my mind, it’s already built.”

Always the optimist, Dorf hopes to announce by the end of this month that his performance center, called the Art Exchange, will indeed be built. But the magnificent landmarked space—he spoke to the Trib on condition that the address not be disclosed—is not his yet. He is still piecing together the financing for the $6 million project.

“I want to be 50 percent of the way financed before I get a lease,” he said. “Right now I’m 30 percent, so I have a little more to go, and I have a lot of interested parties.”Dorf tried not to overstate the likelihood of his plans for this Wall Street location, calling the space his “leading contender.” He asserted that if the Art Exchange doesn’t happen here, it will go elsewhere in the Financial District.

“No matter where or what I do, I’m going to be looking for a large room where I can do a seated type of facility. New York needs a concert hall where you can sit down and watch a show, an adult show, be served drinks, and not stand for a concert.”

Dorf, 40, is married, with twins in pre-kindergarten at P.S. 150. He said that hispeers—ages 35 to 55—don’t enjoy being packed into sweaty clubs any more. “Adult” is a word he uses often these days.

“I love Town Hall but you can’t get a drink. And Irving Plaza is too crowded for an adult show. [I’d] like to go out and see a show and be able to drink out of a glass instead of a plastic cup, where the vibe is one of respect for the facility.”

Not surprisingly, Dorf has the support of Downtown’s boosters. “We are excited about the project,” said Carl Weisbrod, president of the Downtown Alliance, which arranged for a $500,000 federal-state low-interest loan to Dorf. “The Art Exchange will not only bring more people Downtown, but will showcase Lower Manhattan as an alternative cultural destination.”Wall Street Rising introduced Dorf to the owner of the Wall Street building and possible lenders.

These staid Wall Street digs are a far cry from the ratty East Houston Street walkup where Dorf, at 24, founded the Knitting Factory in 1986.The club became one of the city’s premier venues for jazz and rock, featuring the likes of Pat Metheny, Sonic Youth, Marc Ribot and John Zorn. It moved to its bigger Tribeca site in 1994, where it has shows on four stages nightly.

Knit Media, the holding company that Dorf established, also owns a record Fueled by venture capital of nearly $5 million for Internet expansion, Dorf’s ambitions caught fire six years ago when he attempted to turn Knit Media into a music empire, with interactive webcasting from Tribeca, Knitting Factorys in Europe, and the new two-stage Los Angeles club that he called “the consummate content-gathering facility."

But a confluence of financial debacles, not least of which were the dot-com bust and huge construction overruns at the Los Angeles club, sank Dorf’s dreams and led him to pass majority ownership of Knit Media to investors. Differences with those investors—some from the dot-com days, others who came in later to save the club—led him to resign as CEO earlier this year. He is still a shareholder and sits on the board.