New York venue confirms closure date

New York venue Tonic has announced it will close its doors for the last time on April 13.

Owners of the nine-year-old Lower East Side venue announced the final show date via their website .

"After more than nine years as a home for avant-garde, creative, and experimental music, Tonic will reluctantly close its doors on Friday, April 13th, 2007. We simply can no longer afford the rent and all of the other costs associated with doing business on the Lower East Side. The neighborhood around us has been increasingly consumed by 'luxury condominiums,' boutique hotels, and glass towers, all making the value of our salvaged space worth more then our business could ever realistically support."

It also accepts that choosing to showcase underground music contributed to the lack of profit Tonic experienced.

"As a business, we take responsibility for mistakes made along the way. If profit had been our chief motivation we could have changed our programming to something more mainstream and financially lucrative. Instead we were more committed to a certain type of music and loyal to the community that supported us. As a result, we've always just survived but never really prospered."

Despite attempts by fundraisers and musicians (including

Sean Lennon and

Yoko Ono) to keep it open, Tonic is the latest in a line of intimate venues in the area that have been forced to close because of the high cost of real estate.

Sin hosted its final show at the weekend, while Luna Lounge recently reopened its doors in its new Brooklyn location, having been forced out of its previous home on the Lower East Side. Historic East Village venue CBGB famously closed its doors late last year.

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