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There’s a private nightclub on Leonard Street!
Trying to figure this out, but there seems to be some sort of private nightclub-slash-art-slash-performance collective that has opened underneath the former Goa space at 78 Leonard.
It’s called CX, and last Saturday was the soft opening of what they said is their permanent home in Tribeca. They describe themselves as a “network of wild thinkers, creative makers, and edge-seekers,” and it looks like you have to be a member or an invited guest to attend the events. “Our events generate art/conversation that seeks to push boundaries. We connect deeply on our private social app and within pop-up social spaces across New York City and soon beyond.”
The party last Saturday (and there was another on Wednesday) started at 9:17p and ended at 4:17a, with an invitation that said, “dress for photos.”
“Your mission for Saturday night: Find someone new and share the story of your most ambitious new beginning,” the invite continued. “For those who know our world, the magic happens when our amazing members and guests connect meaningfully. We curate these nights as art and performance that wraps around you, the people you meet, and the conversations you have.”
There were several DJs, as well as live cello, live visual art, a tattoo artist, tarot readings and roving performances.
This location is a safe space for people across every spectrum. Please come with respect, discretion, and consent for our guests, performers, and any famous faces you might see in the crowd.
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4am?!?! and this was approved the Community board? jeez
When GOA came to the community board they came as an Indian restaurant…not a club and no later than 1am. Please report to 311 and 911 and SLA ..
@TM: This is not GOA. It is CX, an entirely different venture.
The opening night was a private event that was within the bounds of what as approved of the community board (Farzi is allowed a limited number of private events per year.) It is not our intention to have a regular program that goes beyond 1am on regular nights.
Goa closed in fall 2024. The new restaurant is Farzi.
https://tribecacitizen.com/2025/05/01/sneak-peek-new-indian-coming-to-the-old-goa-space/
Not approved by the CB – please report them to the SLA! They were approved for a restaurant license until 1am and they asked for 12 buyouts a year for private events – like Christmas Parties and Social events. Even with a buyout – the license time is 1am… not 4am.
Though I’d like to be positive, their self-description is kind of gag-inducing.
It was loud and disruptive. How do we find out if approved by community board? Would love to stop this from happening again.
Looked at the website, it’s a nightclub at the end of day that is border line Epsteinish/P-Diddyish.
No, it not a sex club.
As one of the founders behind this project, I’m profoundly offended by this comment. Please see our letter to the neighborhood submitted in the comments below.
But more than anything, please come by and meet the people you are speaking about before posting something like this. If you come say hello, I think you will like us and we will happily forgive you.
I’ll start by introducing ourselves,
My name is William and I’ve spent 25 years working on art and culture in New York City, I had a gallery in Long Island City, and have done projects with the Louvre and within Obama’s White House.
Manena, our lead designer and lead on hospitality was the lead designer at ABC Carpet & Home for 15 years.
Jessica, our lead on our academic programming is the author of Wired This Way and is a much loved scholar on the current human condition.
Douglass Rushkoff, our Scholar in Residence is a well known author, speaker, and host of the podcast Team Human.
I know it can be fun to write wild things about people on the Internet, but please, take a moment to get to know us first.
Speaking of our Community Board, I understand it is with their blessing that the Brazilian restaurant on Duane Street has now held two Sunday out-in-the-street dancing parties with deafeningly amplified music — music heard in apartments for blocks around — from late afternoon until 9 pm. Shameful.
Sounds like it is a plan for just disrupting the neighborhood. How did this happen?
Those against it should be in touch with the Commuity Board. Who is on it? How would one be in touch with them?
I am astounded at the self-righteous and provincial attitudes expressed here. Considering who is behind CX, they will have all their permits and permissions in order and there will be nothing illegal there. If you think not, call the authorities! If you find night life despicable, why do you live in NYC? Especially, why Tribeca (which is essentially FiDi), where the most craven, greed-forward activity in the USA takes place, in broad daylight?
“For those who know our world, the magic happens when our amazing members and guests connect meaningfully. We curate these nights as art and performance that wraps around you, the people you meet, and the conversations you have.”
The wordiest way of saying that they’re a club for boring tech/finance people who think “curating” visually interesting things is the same as being artistic or creative. Glad I’m not rich enough to buy whatever they’re selling (which is almost certainly less “meaningful” and “ambitious” as what the average loft-dweller artist was doing in Tribeca circa 1977).
I grant the language is overly flowery. Yet I’ve worked with some of these people on other projects and they actually are a lot like the loft dwelling artists of Tribeca in the 70’s. They are artists who live in lofts in Brooklyn, which are as endangered as your home once was. The majority are more performance and multimedia forward than the painters of the 70s. But that’s the art world now. CX is going to be very pricey to get into and will be a membership only deal. So you are not going to have a bunch of wild, drunken children out there. There was little to no impact on their pop-ups in SoHo and the other neighborhoods they did first. It will be an interesting, 7-floor experiment.
So these artists are living in endangered Brooklyn lofts, yet they can afford what you also describe as “very pricey” memberships to an art club in Tribeca…
Artists shouldn’t need an art club with an exorbitant membership fee to create and be creative. When I was a kid in Tribeca, art “clubs” like Wetlands were not privatized and you could see a band or go to a reading for $5-10. Poetry at Ear Inn was free if you got yourself a beer and a seat. Well before my time the Fluxus folks staged avant garde performances and did not have a guestlist at the door that you paid to be added to. Artists deserve to get paid but art is not also only meant for the wealthy.
I don’t object to the possibility of noise or street drunkeness – I object to the high-end commodification of art/artistic expression. If you have to keep out the public and pay thousands of dollars a year to see it, then it’s not worth seeing.
Elizabeth, I’m right there with you.
I encourage you to read the entirety of this comment; I think you might be pleasantly surprised by the history and culture of what we are building.
This is William again, one of the founders behind the project that has been so passionately debated.
A little more about me, I’ve been in the city since 1998 and was, for a very long time, a social justice activist, which is the root of the project we are now calling CX. I was there at The Wetlands when it was active.
In fact, I was a full-time activist at the time, doing work with social justice not-for-profits during the day, and fighting to protect our streets, neighborhoods, and gardens at night. I was most active with Reclaim the Streets, More Gardens, and Times Up. Back then, in our view, The Wetlands was the commercialized version of what we were doing at no cost in the streets and gardens of the city.
It’s all a matter of perspective.
The core of this project is born from a spirit of protecting this city’s cacophonous core. We are a home for artists, musicians, creatives, and performers first. Our paying members are what enable everyone else to have a place to perform (and get paid for it).
We’ve had Yippies speak about the old days on our stage, and Penny Arcade and others from that era as honored guests. Douglas Rushkoff regularly curates talks on our stage that I think might include some people you admire.
We are, more than anything an homage, to that old New York you remember so fondly (and I do too).
The crowds of people that everyone has been so activated about were our boisterous and enthusiastic creators from Artist Host program — creators who can’t afford a membership and have been gifted one in order to support all of those who are spending their lives to make the city more interesting.
Tonight, in the space, we have young activists creating an event for Climate Week that would have made Peter Shapiro proud. They have tribal elders speaking next to street activists speaking next to artists who have dedicated their craft to raising awareness about climate change.
Believe it or not, we might be more on the same team than you realize. Our website design and photos aren’t the product of “rich tech people”; they are the product of me, Manena, and our team of artists toiling day in and out to try to make something beautiful for the city.
(I personally do all the design myself.)
Come by and say hello; you might be pleasantly surprised by who and what you find.
Hello everyone!
This is William one of the founders behind the project you all are debating within the comments. Please, let me take a moment to introduce ourselves and our intentions.
Below is a letter we shared with our direct neighbors, and I’m happy to share it with all of you, including our direct contacts.
Please feel free to get in touch with any thoughts/questions/needs, or to simply come check out what we are up to!
Dear Neighbors,
First and foremost, I want to thank you all for your patience with our opening night event last Saturday, as it was fashion week, and our opening turned into quite a scene.
Please accept our sincere apologies if the event was a disruption; this is not our usual program.
I’d like to take this opportunity to introduce ourselves and our intentions for the space at 78 Leonard St. We are working with the team at Farzi to enliven the restaurant they’ve built with talks, performance nights, and wellness experiences all within our brand CX.
CX is an avant-garde private performance community, that works with a membership base of artists and creators from across the city and around the world. We work with spaces like Farzi to bring community and culture to further their program (and cash flow) and to bring in new audiences.
The event the other Saturday wasn’t typical for us; mostly, we do fun, nerdy discussions on art, science, and the future of technology, for example the author Douglas Rushkoff is our Scholar in Residence.
As a Tribeca neighbor, we’d be happy to have you come by anytime to experience directly what we are building. You will find, immediately, that it’s far far far from what some of you are assuming in the comments (Thank you Vince G speaking up for us).
Just mention that you are a neighbor when you come to the door, and our team will welcome you in. Right now we are only creating content a couple nights a week alongside and within the Farzi food service program.
Please come by and say hello! 78 Leonard St., New York, NY
Our goal is to be good neighbors, to bring more culture to Tribeca (we love this neighborhood!), and (hopefully) to be a meaningful part of an essential dialogue happening across New York City and beyond. In the meantime, if you need anything from us, please don’t hesitate to email us directly:
William – william@cllctv.com
Manena – manena@cllctv.com
I don’t care how loud your club is or whether you have a liquor license. Go nuts, whatever. I care that it’s commodifying art and expression and locking it up for the “elite” few who can pay your membership fees (and be admitted). BORING. The antithesis of what it means to create, to be creative, to connect and put something meaningful out into the world.
Artists need to get paid but creating an environment that promotes this financial hierarchy where art is for those who have the means to pay for it (or are “celebs” who get in gratis) is corny as hell and embarrassing. How “avant garde” is it going to be when your audience is mostly wealthy people who have paid for a personality?
It’s also perfectly emblematic of what the Tribeca of today is, so I’m sure you’ll be wildly successful! Congrats.
Hello,
My name is Manena, and I am a partner in CX and Lumo Ombro, which is partnering with Farzi at 78 Leonard St to bring more culture and conversation to Tribeca (but not big parties!)
Please allow me to clarify who we are and our intentions for the space.
For 15 years, I worked at the head of interiors at ABC Carpet & Home. Through this time, I learned the power of restoring peoples sense of awe and wonder through creative storytelling. I also learned that people are hungry for alternatives to the mainstream predictable environments and experiences that our mass production world is used to and more than anything, I saw the potential and the desire for deep, and deeply connected community within New York City.
For a couple of nights a week, this is what we are bringing to Farzi at 78 Leonard St.
We are aiming to create a new kind of cultural center where artists and intellectuals can cross-pollinate ideas. To be very clear, we are not creating a nightclub. Our language and imagery are edgy, and nightlife, as we do produce large-scale events at other locations, and it’s that imagery that brings in the young artists we most want to connect with.
Our intention with 78 Leonard St is to create a cozy performance lounge, with interesting people connecting through conversation inspired by dynamic avant-garde performances, within a stunning space nestled on our quiet block in Tribeca.
And we want to keep the block quiet! And very livable! Our first opening event during fashion week was met with a lot of enthusiasm, and hence, the scale was much bigger than expected. This is not our usual thing, as you will see as you get to know us over the weeks to come.
Here’s what we are planning:
Soon, we intend to open a boutique flower shop and tea lounge during the day that will be open to the general public.
On weeknights, we intend to host intimate talks with leading thinkers from around the world,artists, authors, scientists and on the weekends, we hope to host intimate performance nights with various avant-garde artists across the spectrum (think modern dance, world music, aerialists, and the like).
Our focus is building community to inspire deep conversations while promoting and hosting local artists.
You will see in our promotions that we do bigger events, but those are hosted in other spaces in other neighborhoods, like our large-scale masquerade event happening at a historic club in Chelsea.
We look forward to meeting all of you, and would be happy to meet in person and tour you through the space at any time.
Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly at:
Manena@cllctv.com
Excellent, and welcome to the neighborhood.
Sounds a bit like Lectures On Tap, that has become
very popular. Reasonable folks hopefully appreciate
the clarification. Forget the naysayers. They have a
choice. Don’t participate.
Thanks JG, and yes, Lectures On Tap is one of our many inspirations (although we started at about the same time they did.)
Come by sometime for one of our talks. We seek to highlight thinkers that push boundaries.
Manena, convenient you mention your plans for the day and weeknight but omit how you intend to use the space for weekends. Your promotional video online explains that on weekends, you intend to bring nightlife to Tribeca, a very different sentiment than the wholesome intellectual club you’ve expressed here.
Tonight, your guests were loitering and smoking weed on the sidewalk in front of the space, and it’s only Wednesday! I live nearby and rest assured I will be keeping the community board, 311 and the authorities if needed apprised of any and all violations. The space was approved for an Indian restaurant NOT a social club or night club.
Tribeca, meet your newest neighbor: https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/nyregion/thecity/08impr.html
Lisa, thanks for finding this profile of me in the New York Times from 2006. It’s quite dated, that was 19 years ago after all… when I was much younger and a little more handsome.
While our offerings have evolved significantly over the last twenty years, even at nearly two decades old, that article is a good articulation of the culture we’ve been building across the city for a very, very long time.
The intention is to host our quieter programming in Tribeca, and our bigger, more boisterous nights will be hosted within purpose-built locations across the city, for example, our Halloween Gala Nights, which will be hosted in Chelsea across two weekends in October.
We definitely hear the concerns of all of you about noise and disruption, and are adjusting our Tribeca programming to suit.
Thanks for being in communication with us as we work it all out! Again, please don’t hesitate to email us directly with any needs, concerns, or requests. Or if you want to come by and see for yourself what we are creating, please reach out!
My direct email is: william@cllctv.com
And Manena is: manena@cllctv.com