Terminal 5 opened in October 2007 in a Hell's Kitchen building that had spent years as the nightclub Exit, which police raided and closed in February 2003 before a judge ordered it reopened six weeks later.
The venue spans three floors with two wraparound balconies and a roof deck, so sound and sightlines differ significantly depending on which level you're on.
The building's previous tenant was Exit, a large dance club that also traded as Carbon and Mirage. Police closed it in February 2003 at the end of a long drug investigation, along with another club nearby; a judge ordered Exit reopened that March with a rebuke about the resources spent on the case. The account you will often read — that federal agents shut it permanently in 2003 — conflates it with a separate case against a different club. When Exit finally stopped trading is not on the public record. Bowery Presents opened Terminal 5 in the same shell in October 2007, with the announced opening run led by the National.
Three levels stack around one stage. The main floor sits under forty-foot ceilings; two wraparound mezzanines ring it, each with its own bar, and a roof deck sits above. That geometry is the whole experience: the balconies wrap far enough that a spot on the second level can put you almost over the stage or a long way behind it, and the room sounds materially different depending on which rail you choose. Standing capacity is given as 2,800 by the operator, with total occupancy quoted at 3,000.
Ownership sits inside a larger consolidation. AEG took a half stake in Bowery Presents in a deal announced in 2016 and closed in January 2017; Terminal 5 remains a Bowery Presents room within that network, while the Bowery Ballroom and the Mercury Lounge went the other way, into a joint venture with Live Nation at the end of 2017.
In practice this is where the Bowery ladder ends before an act graduates to an arena. It is the largest standing room on this list apart from the Hammerstein Ballroom, and the two divide the same tier of touring bills between them: the Hammerstein offers an opera-house ceiling and low balconies, Terminal 5 offers height, wraparound levels and open air between sets.
610 W 56th St, New York, NY 10019 · Official site ↗
Terminal 5 is a New York City music venue in Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan, located at 610 West 56th Street west of Eleventh Avenue. It has a multi-level event site with five distinct room environments and a capacity of 3,000 people.
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