Mudd Club

The Mudd Club was named after Samuel Alexander Mudd, a physician who treated John Wilkes Booth in the aftermath of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination. It closed in New York in 1983.

To secure the space for the Mudd Club (a loft owned by artist Ross Bleckner), Steve Mass described the future venue as cabaret. Mass said he had started the nightclub on a budget of only $15,000.

The club featured a bar, gender-neutral bathrooms and a rotating gallery curated by Keith Haring on the fourth floor. Live performances included new wave, experimental music, literary icons Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, and catwalk exhibitions for emerging fashion designers Anna Sui and Jasper Conran.