CAMBRIDGE, MASS. (WHDH) - The iconic Middle East nightclub and music venue in Cambridge’s Central Square may soon be singing its swan song as its owners devise plans to turn it into a hotel.
“There’s so much history,” said an artist who was about to play at the club. “It’s a classic spot.”
The Middle East first opened as a Lebanese restaurant in 1970, soon transforming into its current form as a music venue. Now, the owners of the space have submitted a plan to the Cambridge Historical Commission, complete with a rendering showing a total overhaul of the real estate into a six-story hotel. The plans include a music venue.
When 7NEWS told a passerby of the plans to turn the club into a hotel, his eyes grew wide.
“Oh no!” he said.
“It’s really a landmark,” another passerby said, noting the artwork donning the side of the building.
“I just hope it doesn’t feel too swanky,” musician Gabriel Smith said. “(The Middle East) has got grunge, it’s got character, I guess I worry with a hotel that it would lose some of that heart.”
Alex Lizotte, who went to college in Boston, has saved some of the T-shirts he got at the Middle East. “It was a very memorable night,” he said of the time the artists dragged him and some friends onstage.
The owners and Middle East management at the venue declined to comment, but there will be a hearing on the future of the venue next month.
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