Putting on the Ritz the Club that Rocked New York
Imagine you’re in New York City in the early eighties, Disco is Dead and you’re in the historic Webster Hall ballroom built in 1886, with its huge chandelier and its ten mile high ceilings with its handsome Queen Anne and Renaissance revival architecture.
You are standing in the legendary concert venue the Ritz, the first large rock club in New York that had a dance floor at the front of the stage, rather than tables and chairs.
The Ritz was also one of the first clubs to incorporate video screens into the club experience with a 30 by 60 foot screen, with a projector that cost $120,000.
Founded by Jerry Brandt in 1980, the Ritz name connotates a sense of high end quality or sophistication, which may have been the intention behind the nightclub’s branding.
Known for its role in shaping the Punk, New Wave and Alternative Rock sounds of the 80s, the Ritz was the biggest nightclub in New York with the 60,000 square feet of dancing, lounging, with plenty of bars.
With a dance floor capacity of 2500, it hosted the Greatest Rock and Roll Bands in the world.
It could be Prince, The Police, Tina Turner, Guns & Roses or U2 booming a raging rock sound throughout the block.
The list of acts is massive as the rock club operated from 1980 to 1995 with the Talking Heads, Robert Palmer, James Brown, Iggy Pop, Jimmy Page, Buster Poindexter, the Cult, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Joe Cocker, Joan Jett, the Pretenders, Sonic Youth, Dave Mason, Jerry Lee Lewis, The Ramones, Motor Head, Psychedelic Furs, Depeche Mode, the Romantics, Living Colour, the Banshees, Frank Zappa, the Go-Go’s Johnny Winters and many others.
The Ritz was where MTV made its debut with “Live at the Ritz” on Saturday nights, as Prince recorded live in 1981, Guns and Rose’s, Bo Didley with Ronnie Wood, while David Bowie fronted the Tin Machine in 1989.
Nirvana’s last New York show was there in 1994.
The Ritz later moved to the site of Studio 54 where it became the “New Ritz” and closed in 1995.
Hundreds of raging rock concerts… you had to have been there.
David Garland Mar 22, 2026 Architecture Back in Time Music Video
Mar 22, 2026
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