Veruka was a nightclub in Manhattan, owned by Noel Ashman. The club operated between January 1997 and June 2004, and was known for its strict door policy and celebrity patrons.
The name Veruka was derived from Veruca Salt, the character of the story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. [1] Veruka [2] was located on Broome Street at Sixth Avenue. It had a multi-level lounge and was one of New York's first clubs to have bottle service. In 2001, designer Todd Oldham redesigned the club. Hip-hop songwriter John Forté (of the Fugees) was among the club's celebrity DJs. [3]
Celebrity regulars included Sean Penn, Ben Affleck, Leonardo DiCaprio, Mark Wahlberg, Cuba Gooding Jr., Nicolas Cage, Debbie Harry, Derek Jeter, Denis Leary, John Waters, Martin Sheen, [2] and Sarah Jessica Parker, [4] and was a popular location for the New York Yankees. [5]
Owner Noel Ashman opened a new club, The Leonora, in Chelsea in August 2014. [6] Ashman described The Leonora as a modernized version of Veruka.
Howard Elliott Ashman was an American playwright, lyricist and stage director. He is most widely known for his work on feature films for Walt Disney Animation Studios, for which Ashman wrote the lyrics and Alan Menken composed the music. Ashman has been credited as being a main driving force behind the Disney Renaissance. His work included songs for Little Shop of Horrors, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. Tim Rice took over to write the rest of the songs for the latter film after Ashman's death in 1991.
Alan Irwin Menken is an American composer, pianist, music director, and record producer, best known for his scores and songs for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Skydance Animation. Menken's music for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) has each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores and songs for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Newsies (1992), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Home on the Range (2004), Enchanted (2007), Tangled (2010), and Disenchanted (2022), among others. His accolades include winning eight Academy Awards — becoming the second most prolific Oscar winner in the music categories after Alfred Newman, a Tony Award, eleven Grammy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Daytime Emmy Award. Menken is one of nineteen people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
Chelsea Piers is a series of piers in Chelsea, on the West Side of Manhattan in New York City. Located to the west of the West Side Highway and Hudson River Park and to the east of the Hudson River, they were originally a passenger ship terminal in the early 1900s that was used by the RMS Lusitania and was the destination of the RMS Carpathia after rescuing the survivors of the RMS Titanic. The piers replaced a variety of run-down waterfront structures with a row of grand buildings embellished with pink granite facades.
Chelsea Joy Handler is an American stand-up comedian, actress, writer, television host, and producer. She hosted the late-night talk show Chelsea Lately on the E! network from 2007 to 2014 and released a documentary series, Chelsea Does, on Netflix in January 2016. From 2016 to 2017, Handler hosted the talk show Chelsea on Netflix.
The 40/40 Club was a chain of sports bars and lounges owned by Jay-Z. The name is borrowed from the baseball term for the exclusive group of Major League Baseball players who have achieved the rare individual feat of 40 home runs and 40 stolen bases in a single season.
Tunnel was a nightclub located at 220 Twelfth Avenue, in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It operated from 1986 to 2001.
Ross Mathews is an American television host and personality. He rose to fame as an intern and a correspondent for The Tonight Show with Jay Leno; he was known as "Ross the Intern" on air.
Café Society was a New York City nightclub open from 1938 to 1948 on Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village. It was managed by Barney Josephson.
Bungalow 8 was an exclusive nightclub chain with locations in Manhattan's West Side, London's West End, and Amsterdam's nightlife neighborhood Leidseplein. The New York location in particular was popular with celebrities in the early 2000s. Frequent guests included George Clooney, Bill Clinton, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Zelda Kaplan, David Beckham, Peter Crouch and Nicole Richie. In the interest of privacy, Bungalow 8 had a strict no photography rule.
The Comedy Cellar is a comedy club in Manhattan where many top New York comedians perform, sometimes referred to as the "Harvard of comedy clubs". It was founded in 1982 by then stand-up comedian, and current television writer/producer Bill Grundfest. It is located in Greenwich Village on 117 MacDougal Street between West 3rd Street and Minetta Lane. Above the club is a restaurant called The Olive Tree Cafe to which it is connected, where many of the comedians hang out after performing. The club is owned by Noam Dworman, who inherited it from his late father Manny in 2003. It is being booked by Estee Adoram, who has developed the club's talent for nearly four decades. The businesses share the same menu, kitchen, and staff as the Olive Tree Cafe.
Chelsea Place was a restaurant at 147 Eighth Avenue in New York City's Chelsea district, founded in 1974 and operational until 1992. It was unusual in that the restaurant was hidden in the back of an antique shop. In the back of the store was what appeared to be a large wardrobe with mullioned mirrored doors. Opening the doors, however, revealed a piano bar area. Passing through the bar, an unadorned door opened onto a staircase which led down to a basement seating area. This area contained several dining rooms surrounding a glass-enclosed garden which gave an atrium-like feel, having several windows placed along a wall near the top. The garden included such eclectic furnishings as a totem pole and a pond with ducks. Total seating capacity was around 100. The food was Northern Italian.
The Chelsea Art Museum (CAM) was a contemporary art museum located at 556 West 22nd Street on the corner of Eleventh Avenue in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The museum focused on post-war European art.
Foxy Production is a New York contemporary art gallery founded by Michael Gillespie and John Thomson.
Hudson Square is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan in New York City. It is bounded approximately by Clarkson Street to the north, Canal Street to the south, Varick Street to the east, and the Hudson River to the west. To the north of the neighborhood is Greenwich Village, to the south is TriBeCa, and to the east are the South Village and SoHo. The area, once the site of the colonial property named Richmond Hill, became known in the 20th century as the Printing District, and into the 21st century it remains a center of media-related activity, including in advertising, design, communications, and the arts.
The Empire Diner is a restaurant in New York City that launched a vogue for upscale retro diners, and whose art deco exterior became an iconic image in numerous films and television programs. It is located at the corner of Tenth Avenue and 22nd Street in the neighborhood of Chelsea.
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery is an art gallery founded by Tanya Bonakdar, located in both Chelsea in New York City and Los Angeles. Since its inception in 1994, the gallery has exhibited new work by contemporary artists in all media, including painting, sculpture, installation, photography, and video. The New York City location is at 521 W. 21st Street and the Los Angeles gallery is located at 1010 N. Highland Avenue.
Team Gallery is a contemporary art gallery located in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City, with an additional project space in Venice, Los Angeles, California. It was founded by José Freire and Lisa Ruyter in 1996. Team has represented such artists as Ryan McGinley, Banks Violette, Cory Arcangel, Sam McKinniss, and Gardar Eide Einarsson.
The Kasmin Gallery, formerly known as the Paul Kasmin Gallery, is a New York City fine art gallery, founded in SoHo in 1989.
Greene Naftali is a contemporary art gallery located in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City.
Jack Shainman Gallery is a contemporary art gallery in New York City. The gallery was founded by Jack Shainman and his then-partner Claude Simard (1956—2014) in 1984 in Washington, D.C. The gallery has a focus on artists from Africa, East Asia, and North America.
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