Requiem for Vox Pop
Monday, September 27th, 2010
Scheduled shows are cancelled due to Vox Pop’s closure. Photo by Joey Mulkerin
Vox Pop, beloved neighborhood café, bookstore and village commons of Ditmas Park, finally succumbed last month following a long battle with the New York state government. On August 6, Con Edison shut off the electricity due to unpaid bills and on August 24, the property was seized by the state of New York due to a failure to pay back taxes. It was 6 years old.
The café was born in 2004, love child of noted playwright, political activist and New School alumni Sander Hicks. It was initially founded as a combined coffee shop, bookstore and publishing company with a focus on nonfiction, political science and alternative media. In a 2006 interview with C-Span Hicks stated, “The impetus that really inspired me to start Vox Pop was 9/11 and how I saw the entire country kind of swept up in a frenzy of jingoism and hatred and I really wanted to create a space in which people could come together, share ideas about politics and religion and sort of cross fertilize and out of that really kind of take new activist media projects.” Hicks certainly succeeded in bringing people together. Vox Pop quickly became a neighborhood haunt where a motley crew of locals, old hippies, students, veterans, hipsters, musicians and free thinkers converged to drink coffee, beer, read poetry and listen to music.
Sadly the café, in spite of the community surrounding it, was long plagued by financial problems. Debbie Ryan, controlling partner, and some 190 others bought Sander Hicks out, but the cafe continued to close down and re-open several times thanks to benefit shows and fundraising drives with loyal customers chipping in. Unfortunately, the debt remained. On September 7 the shareholders voted to pull the plug permanently, citing the inability for it to be a viable moneymaker anymore and on September 15, all assets were auctioned off by the state of New York. In a final statement to the public on the Vox Pop website Debbie Ryan said, “In spite of the fact that the doors are now closed, a wonderful community has had the opportunity to form around this little corner spot and it is our hope that the bonds that were formed, the friendships that were made and the networks that were built continue to live on.”
The café was born in 2004, love child of noted playwright, political activist and New School alumni Sander Hicks. It was initially founded as a combined coffee shop, bookstore and publishing company with a focus on nonfiction, political science and alternative media. In a 2006 interview with C-Span Hicks stated, “The impetus that really inspired me to start Vox Pop was 9/11 and how I saw the entire country kind of swept up in a frenzy of jingoism and hatred and I really wanted to create a space in which people could come together, share ideas about politics and religion and sort of cross fertilize and out of that really kind of take new activist media projects.” Hicks certainly succeeded in bringing people together. Vox Pop quickly became a neighborhood haunt where a motley crew of locals, old hippies, students, veterans, hipsters, musicians and free thinkers converged to drink coffee, beer, read poetry and listen to music.
Sadly the café, in spite of the community surrounding it, was long plagued by financial problems. Debbie Ryan, controlling partner, and some 190 others bought Sander Hicks out, but the cafe continued to close down and re-open several times thanks to benefit shows and fundraising drives with loyal customers chipping in. Unfortunately, the debt remained. On September 7 the shareholders voted to pull the plug permanently, citing the inability for it to be a viable moneymaker anymore and on September 15, all assets were auctioned off by the state of New York. In a final statement to the public on the Vox Pop website Debbie Ryan said, “In spite of the fact that the doors are now closed, a wonderful community has had the opportunity to form around this little corner spot and it is our hope that the bonds that were formed, the friendships that were made and the networks that were built continue to live on.”
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Alex Wildcat