Meet me at the Lot: A Brooklyn cultural institution thrives through COVID-19

Club kids with industrial jewelry and cropped pants. Consultant types in business casual wear. An older motorcycle gang clad in denim and leather.

At 10:30 p.m. on a summer Friday last year, these groups would likely have gone out to different places. Tonight, they’re together at the Lot Radio.

The Lot is a 4-year-old radio station and 4 year-old outdoor bar nestled between warehouses in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. From a converted shipping container with windows, DJs spin electronic music for an outdoor audience while bartenders serve beer, wine, and saké. The Empire State Building peeks out in the distance.

Once a niche spot for techno enthusiasts, this year, the Lot serves as a neighborhood watering hole in 2020's pandemic summer, at a time when hundreds of city bars have shut down or are severely limiting their operations. 

During a season of struggles for New York’s independent music scene, things seem almost normal here, but the pandemic is evident. Patrons wear face coverings and sit in groups spaced in concentric circles six feet apart. Twenty-somethings are gossiping about dating, restaurants, and weed gummies, but also reflecting on immediate concerns: the loneliness of quarantine, President Trump, and “the vaccine.” 

Most groups keep to themselves well enough. People are friendly, but territorial. A few defectors go up to speak to uneasy strangers, who politely request they put on their masks.

The Lot’s unique circumstances enable it to thrive through this peculiar summer. The whole venue is outdoors — a golden ticket in the age of social distancing. 
Just as important is the bar’s location in an Open Streets zone – a designation by the Department of Transportation to help New Yorkers get outside but keep socially distant through the pandemic. Of the three streets surrounding the Lot, two are closed to traffic.

This allows the crowd to spill out onto the streets up to 50 feet in each direction. Unlike local bars and restaurants with tables on the sidewalk and adjacent parking spots, patrons here can take over an entire block with no formal barricades or seating. Some stand in circles, while others bring blankets to lounge on the dusty asphalt beach eye level with car headlights from the road over.

Ambient outdoor dance music and the laughter of strangers—sounds New Yorkers spent months without—make these uncomfortable environs cozy. It feels equal parts clandestine and natural.

When a drizzle starts later in the evening, the challenges of an outdoor venue become clear. Some pack up; hardier groups hold out, determined to hold onto some semblance of normal.