[URBAN NOTE] "Requiem for Hugh’s Room: Much-loved folkie venue a victim of cash-flow problems"

[rfmcdonald]

Brad Wheeler's feature in The Globe and Mail about the fate of Hugh's Room reads like an elegy to this much-appreciated venue.

Richard Carson stands outside Hugh’s Room, having a smoke and talking about the specialness of his west-end music venue that now is in limbo because of financial problems.

“What I wanted to do here was to create a place where artists wanted to play, where staff wanted to work and where music fans wanted to be,” he says, looking off at the grey sky. “Some nights, I would stand back and watch those three things come together, and, I tell you, it was magical to see.”

With that, Mr. Carson, who opened the city’s premier folk club in 2001, shakes his head worryingly and stubs out his cigarette.

Just then, a friend who’s chipped in to fix an electrical problem in the building steps outside and pats Mr. Carson on the back as he walks by. “Hang in there, Richard,” he says. “Hang in there.”

The club owner laughs softly to himself. Hang in there? He’s been doing exactly that for nearly 16 years.