🎸 The Hook and Ladder turns 10

The Hook and Ladder Theater's first unexpected challenge was a good one: Opening in 2016 during a spate of venue closures, there was more demand for their stage than they could handle, sending them scrambling to expand.

Since then, the surprises have been steady but not so favorable. COVID and the halting of all live events. The murder of George Floyd and the subsequent destruction it brought to their corner. The foreboding barbed wire and burned-out husk of the Third Precinct looming a few feet from their entrance. The planned reworking of their alley and de facto parking area as part of that building's reconstruction. The loss of a month of programming during Operation Metro Surge. An overall decline in showgoing and drinking and foundation support for the performing arts.

Regular readers of the newsletter will recognize many of these narrative beats from the backstory of just about every institution in the area. But they've had a pointed impact on a place that traffics in live events and sits directly next to the precinct. Still, even if it's by the skin of its teeth, the venue has survived a decade of operation and is preparing for yet another expansion. They're celebrating the 10-year milestone with a free two-day festival this weekend.

Background

The building dates back to 1894 as a horse-drawn firehouse on the southern outskirts of the city, wedged between a drugstore and a blacksmith shop. After the station moved to a new building in the sixties, the old firehouse became a furniture store, then an avant-garde theater, and then a furniture store again. A cab company dispatched upstairs.