CBGB: doors close

The New York Times has some bad news:

For more than 30 years, CBGB, the eternally crumbling downtown nightclub, has with ragged pride withstood every hand the neighborhood and the music scene have dealt it: punk-rock, death metal, crack addicts, city inspectors and bad plumbing. But it may have met its match in one of the city's most respected charity group.

In a scrappy Bowery real-estate battle, CBGB has been in and out of court for much of the last four years with its landlord, the Bowery Residents' Committee, a nonprofit organization that helps the homeless. The dispute concerns enough unpaid rent to finance dozens of punk bands as well as numerous building violations that leave a paper trail as thick as the layers of fliers stapled to the club's walls.

In an arrangement known to few of the club's patrons, CBGB subleases its spaces at 313 and 315 Bowery from the organization, which shelters 175 homeless people in the floors above the club. In 2001, the organization began efforts to collect more than $300,000 in back rent from the club. Although much of that has now been paid, the club faces eviction over remaining debts of about $75,000, both parties say.

Both organizations have dug in their heels and claim a moral right to the property.

"We're an institution," said Hilly Kristal, the grandfatherly 73-year-old who started CBGB - with plans to stage "country, bluegrass and blues," not punk - in late 1973. "I think we're an important part of this community. The city uses us in their Olympics ad, along with the Statue of Liberty."

In the opposite corner is Muzzy Rosenblatt, the executive director of the Bowery Residents' Committee, who resents diverting the organization's money to legal expenses to get what he says is due from an uncooperative tenant.

"I am not going to subsidize CBGB at the expense of homeless people," Mr. Rosenblatt said. The organization took a 45-year lease on the building in 1993, and subleased CBGB its spaces - the main club is at 315 Bowery, and its quieter Gallery and basement space are next door - for 12 years. That sublease expires in August, and Mr. Kristal said the organization offered to renew it, but would double the club's rent, to $40,000 a month, or about $55 per square foot. That would bring the space in line with the highest rate paid for new property on the white-hot Bowery real-estate market.

Mr. Rosenblatt declined to comment on the terms of the lease renewal. "I'm trying to get him to comply with the old lease," he said.

According to court documents from 2001, CBGB owed the Bowery Residents' Committee more than $300,000 in back rent and agreed to a monthly payment plan for its debt and all new rent charges. A stipulation in the agreement states that if the club did not make its payments on time, it could be evicted immediately.

CBGB has been paying back its debt dutifully, both sides say. But when the organization discovered that the club was not paying the annual rent increases scheduled in its lease, it gave the club notice to pay within seven days, as required by law, but the club has challenged the debt in court. A hearing is scheduled for later this month.

The case pits two of the most recognizable downtown institutions against each other in a battle for space that few considered very valuable until recently. The Bowery Residents' Committee has vans that trawl the city offering help to the homeless, and operates 18 rehabilitation centers and shelters. CBGB is the organization's only commercial tenant, Mr. Rosenblatt said.

In the 1970's, CBGB was the dank incubator for much of the punk and art-rock that came out of New York, with concerts by the Ramones, Patti Smith, Television, Blondie and the Talking Heads, among others. It has continued to present bands of every stripe - mostly of the loud stripe, though - and is one of the few rock clubs known by name throughout the world. CBGB Fashions, a company Mr. Kristal set up to sell T-shirts and other merchandise, grosses about $2 million a year, he said.

"Millions and millions of musicians in this world think of CBGB as a home base," Mr. Kristal said proudly.

But real-estate experts and people close to the situation say both sides have flawed cases, and that a judge's decision in the latest hearing will be difficult to predict.

Jerry H. Goldfeder, a lawyer who specializes in elections and landlord-tenant disputes, said the two groups' fame would be unlikely to sway a judge in either side's favor.

"Presumably, a judge would make the same legal determination," Mr. Goldfeder said, "whether it's CB's or a doctor's office or a bodega."