It is going from bazaar to down-right spooky!
Popular late-night flea market and live music series Brooklyn Night Bazaar is finally reopening in the old Polonaise Terrace Polish banquet hall on Greenpoint Avenue on Sept. 9, after more than a year since losing its last venue. The proprietors say they’re really running with the labyrinthine 118-year-old building’s creepy, kitschy look, holding onto floor-to-ceiling mirrors, fancy rugs, and anything else they could salvage from its past.
“We’re trying to embrace the space it was, we think it’s awesome with so much character, in a good way,” said co-creator Belvy Klein said. “It’s really ‘The Shining’ and ‘American Horror Story’ meets ‘Scarface.’”
The party, now renamed just Brooklyn Bazaar, will be spread out across the venue’s three levels. The crafty market will be on the ground floor, all the fun and games — karaoke, ping pong, mini golf, and an arcade — will be in the basement, and a 400-person live music and event space will take over the second story.
The space is smaller than previous incarnations of the bazaar — the last one was a massive Greenpoint warehouse before it was kicked out to make way for a luxury car company — but Klein said the smaller, segmented space will actually let them do far more, as he and co-owner Aaron Broudo can hold smaller events or rent out certain rooms.
“We don’t have to open every room every night, you don’t have to take the whole space if you want to do an event,” he said. “It is smaller, but when you are here it feels a lot bigger because there’s all these rooms, it’s really like a maze in a fun, cool way.”
The bazaar will also include a new Southern-ish restaurant on the ground floor serving buckets of fried chicken, run by Williamsburg high-end comfort food joint Brooklyn Star, which will be open every day.
The space was literally falling apart when Klein and Broudo got their first look at the space — the previous owners ripped out ceilings to remove asbestos and hauled off the glitzy chandeliers and other valuables to sell at auction when Polonaise closed in 2013 after 53 years in business.
But the pair saved as much as they could, and are also trying to hang onto the iconic “waiter” logo outside the building, if they legally can, Klein said.
Indie-pop band Clap Your Hand Say Yeah will play the opening night on Sept. 9, followed by hardcore band Pissed Jeans on Sept. 10.
Brooklyn Night Bazaar (150 Greenpoint Ave. between Manhattan Avenue and Franklin Street in Greenpoint, www.bkbaz
