Bargemusic, the floating chamber-music venue moored at Fulton Ferry Landing, was closed Wednesday just hours before a concert after a city official discovered a problem with the boat’s emergency exit, the Times reports. Concerts through the weekend have been canceled; whether the next scheduled performance, on October 5, happens depends on whether the problem can be fixed—permanently or temporarily—in time.
Alex Ross immediately took to Twitter, asking the city council to help the concert hall reopen.
Ironically, the city installed the emergency exit with which it now takes issue.
A Bargemusic board member and administrator, DeBorge Pinnington, said an official with the city’s Economic Development Corporation had arbitrarily shut down the hall after knowing for years about the emergency exit and after having been told that Bargemusic was working on a replacement.
She also said it was unfair for the official to complain, since the city installed the exit, even though Bargemusic is responsible for it. “They put this awful thing in,” she said.
The exit is a door by the front of the stage that leads to a gangway that brings you to the pier.
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