Don Hill's

Stephen Trask and John Cameron Mitchell worked out early versions of Hedwig and the Angry Inch at Don Hill's, as part of its drag-tastic Squeezebox parties¹. The booking ran from Latin death metal to the Toilet Boys². When we listed it, we called it dingy, dark and smelly, with weak drinks, and told you to go anyway.

Don Hill, who had helped launch Poison and LA Guns at the Cat Club², opened the place at the corner of Spring and Greenwich Streets in 1993². The corner had been a Munson's Diner, one of a chain that dotted the city in the 1940s and '50s, and then Keith McNally's high-end restaurant Canal Bar².

In 2010 the nightlife impresarios Paul Sevigny and Nur Khan joined Hill as partners and remodeled the club; there was still live music, now with chic parties afterward². Hill, born Donald Mulvihill, died in March 2011 at 66^{1, 3}, and a month later Sevigny and Khan were forced to close the club¹.

In December 2014 a soon-to-open replacement called The Hills was set to host a tribute to Hill with Michael C. Hall and other cast members of Hedwig¹, and it was due to open the next year⁴. Nothing came of it⁵. Related Companies was said to be in talks with Ponte Equities about tearing down and rebuilding the whole block of Spring Street between Renwick and Greenwich, 511 Greenwich included^{5, 6}. As of 2018 the old space was getting a cleaning and, one Friday night, a party⁷.