In the East Village, among all the East Villains and the Gen Z partiers waiting in line for Wiggle Room and the sky-high rents, one can still find Nick Bodor, the longtime proprietor of the Library on Avenue A; the storied, now-closed Cake Shop; and his most recent venture Baker Falls, his vision of a "Twin Peaks"-inspired café-slash-bar-slash-rock club.
Bodor is an East Village lifer, and he doesn't plan to go anywhere. But Baker Falls, and all of its eerie portraits and handpainted wooden doors, has moved. In the fall, he transferred management of Baker Falls' old location, the former site of the famed Pyramid Club on Avenue A, to the Baby's All Right team and Knitting Factory, who helped Bodor open the venue in 2023. Earlier this month, Bodor opened the new Baker Falls location in the former Rockwood Music Hall stage on Allen Street, with his business partner Juan Castillo.
While the old Baker Falls was burdened with the history of the Pyramid Club, Bodor says the new spot will be more true to his vision for the venue, particularly its daytime operations—he plans to host shows during the day, and he'll cordon off some space for people to work on their laptops, he told me, but what he really wants is for people to hangout and socialize and have in-person meetings, like we used to do, and ultimately, something akin to the Greenwich Village folk scene.