Café Istanbul is a 3,800 square feet performance hall with a mission of fostering, encouraging and promoting performance art in New Orleans. The line up of events will include live music, dance, theatre, poetry, comedy, film and visual arts. Located at 2372 St Claude Ave, in the New Orleans Healing Center, a 55,000 square feet building formerly Universal Furniture, Cafe Istanbul joins the St Claude arts district as it latest partner providing coveted and needed space for the ever burgeoning NOLA theatre and performance community.
From its inception, Café Istanbul has been designed to be a top notch platform for local artist. It will provide a high quality sound system with great sound proofing. Around the perimeter of the balcony’s ceiling there is a two inch wide bass trap built to prevent bass sound from bouncing all over the room. Additionally the ceiling is packed with 5 inches of Quiet Batt insulation and 10 inches of regular home insulation. The aluminum paneling that wrapped around Universal Furniture for the last 50 years has been used to create a beautiful Wains Cot around the first floor of Café Istanbul. The panels have been turned backwards to allow sound boards wrapped in fabric to be placed in each of them. The higher walls on both floors will have over 50 wooden sound panels, two feet by four feet down stairs and four feet by four feet upstairs. With a cost of more than $100 each, these panels will encase 4 inch fiberglass hull board (a material used to insulate ships). This hull board will also wrapped in fabric.
The balcony will be dedicated as gallery space displaying the work of local painters and photographers on a monthly rotating basis. Café Istanbul plans to be a part of the St Claude Arts District Gallery Openings that happens the second Saturday of every month. Meryt Harding is a local artist who has been hired to develop a roster of visual artist and facilitate the gallery space.
