Element / The Vault, Lower East Side

Overview

Originally constructed as a bank in the 1900s the space has been repurposed as variety of clubs over the years. The scene varies wildly by night and by party. Overall the DJs tend to be good and the crowd comes to dance not to pose.

Originally constructed as a bank in the 1900s the space has been repurposed as variety of clubs over the years. The most recent incarnation is actually two clubs in one. Entrance to the main room does not guarantee or even pay for entrance to the lower Vault area. Varies wildly by night and by party, but overall good DJs and a crowd that comes to dance.

History

A loan society that learned to dance

Jasper Johns had his studio here in the 1970s, and in the 1990s it was The Bank, a club with weekly goth and industrial nights^{1, 2, 3}. The building had opened in 1912 as the Provident Loan Society of New York¹, and somewhere along the way it was also a club called Chaos, then a strip club⁴.

Element opened on February 16, 2006, to queues around the block⁵. That April a separate, intimate DJ bar, the Vault, opened beneath it⁶. VIPs could watch the dancers below from a second-floor balcony⁴, though in our experience the crowd came to dance, not to pose.

Element closed in November 2010; whatever the building became next, it would no longer be a club¹. The last night, on November 21, was a farewell for the goth crowd of the old Bank³.

Later plans for the building never materialized, though the city approved the permits, and by July 2018 it was on the market for $20 million⁷. After a gut renovation in 2021 it became NMP Stages, a broadcast production facility⁷. As promised, it is no longer a club^{1, 7}.

Sources

Researched October 2026.

Element / The Vault

In 2026

Overview

History

Sources

What's nearby