Three Years Later, Manchester Nightclub Sankeys Coming to 14,800-Square-Foot Midtown Space
By Billy Gray March 27, 2013 8:00 am
reprintsManchester, England clubbing institution Sankeys is finally set to open in New York, and will take over the Garment District space vacated by District 36 following the death of a patron there last spring.
Sankeys owner David Vincent announced the New York satellite all the way back in July of 2010. The initial plan was to open in a 16,000-square-foot venue in Hell’s Kitchen, somewhere around West 50th Street. Now, the English dance club will come to 29 West 36th Street, a former garment warehouse that in 2010 opened as the 14,800-square-foot D.J. venue District 36.
Since word broke about the Sankeys offshoot, electronic music has experienced an unprecedented boom in popularity on American shores. Large dance floors including Output in Williamsburg have opened to meet demand. The Ibiza behemoth Space is also said to be working on a New York branch, this one a 13,000-square-footer on 50th Street at 12th Avenue.
The local party promoter Ibiza United plans to open Sankeys NYC later this year, reports DNAinfo. The space will hold between 600 and 800 people. Club operators hope to get approval for cabaret and liquor licenses from Community Board 5 and the State Liquor Authority and will go before C.B. 5’s Public Safety and Quality of Life Committee tomorrow.
Cabaret licenses are tough and expensive to procure, and Sankeys’ attempts are further complicated by the troubled history of District 36. Cops found patron Michael Lin with bruises and a broken jaw outside the nightspot at 3 a.m. last April. Mr. Lin, 27, died at Bellevue one hour later. The precise cause of Mr. Lin’s death remains a mystery. Conflicting reports in various news outlets at the time attributed his fatal injuries to a gangland squabble, a tumble down a flight of stairs and a plunge from the mezzanine balcony.
