The Black Building: How a Bus Depot Became the Center of the Musical Universe

Every city claims a room. Ours happens to be a former Greyhound bus depot, painted black, wearing more than 400 silver stars like a coat of armor. First Avenue doesn't need the introduction, but the story is too good not to keep telling.

The building went up in 1937 — Art Deco, blue brick, checkered terrazzo, the kind of transit hub that came with shower rooms and public telephones. Allan Fingerhut, of the mail-order family, bought it in 1970 and opened it as a nightclub called The Depot on April 3, with Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen — a 27-piece traveling circus — christening the stage across two sets. Then came the name changes that track American nightlife like tree rings: Uncle Sam's in 1972, all disco and patriotic bunting; Sam's in 1980; and finally First Avenue, adopted at the close of 1981.

The Prince era is where legend takes over. Manager Steve McClellan booked a young Prince in 1981 — reportedly $2,500 plus a cut of the gate — and the partnership rewrote the building's meaning. When Purple Rain was filmed inside in late 1983, First Avenue became the rare movie set that was also a real, functioning club, staffed by the very people appearing as extras. Prince would play the Mainroom repeatedly across his life. The star bearing his name on the exterior wall is now a permanent pilgrimage site.

The physical facts still impress. The Mainroom holds about 1,550; the 7th St Entry — spun off from the old Greyhound Cafe in 1980 — holds roughly 250 and functions as the city's most important small stage, the place a Minneapolis band plays before it plays anywhere bigger. The two rooms share a wall and a philosophy: this is where you find out whether a crowd loves you.

It nearly vanished. In the fall of 2004, financial trouble forced the doors shut, and the city reacted like a family member had been hospitalized. Within a week, partners Jack Meyers, Steve McClellan, and Byron Frank reopened the club, and First Avenue has since evolved into a locally owned operation running a small empire of rooms — the Turf Club, the Fitzgerald, the Palace, and more — that keeps a remarkable share of Twin Cities live music under independent, hometown control.

That's the part outsiders miss when they treat First Avenue as a Purple Rain backdrop. The stars on the wall aren't nostalgia; they're a working ledger of a scene that never stopped producing. The building has survived name changes, a bankruptcy scare, the loss of the artist most associated with it, and the general 21st-century war on independent venues — and it did it by staying exactly what it was: a dark, loud room that takes local music seriously enough to bet the business on it.

Stand across the street some night and count the stars you recognize. Then go inside, because the wall is a monument and the stage is still in use. In a country that keeps turning its landmarks into parking lots, the Twin Cities kept the black building black, the sound loud, and the door open. That's not preservation. That's a city that knows what it has.

Sources: First Avenue (nightclub) — Wikipedia); Our History — First Avenue