After reported fire, Blues Alley jazz club hopes to reopen next week

The owner of the historic Blues Alley jazz club in Georgetown said he hopes to reopen for business early next week, after his venue shut down Tuesday evening when smoke poured from the top of the building.

“Just get the word out that we are alive and well,” said Harry Schnipper, the owner and executive director of Blues Alley, adding that he expects to resume scheduled shows on Tuesday.

The incident occurred around 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, when Blues Alley employees first noticed smoke coming from the top of the building, as musician Owen Broder was preparing to begin his first set, Schnipper said. The owner, performer and patrons evacuated the building. A performance was scheduled for later in the evening but one patron said in a tweet that early arrivals were asked to “calmly leave.” Images circulated on social media showing rows of firetrucks outside the historic club, in an alley behind the 1000 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW.

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Jennifer Donelan, chief communications officer for D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services, said firefighters confronted a fire in the area between the ceiling and the roof and were able to extinguish it. She said the department has yet to determine the cause of the flames.

But Schnipper disputed there was a fire at all. The club owner said there was only smoke, but no flames, in the building. He also said that an estimate he provided to the D.C. fire department about the damage — about $50,000 — was a “speculative guess.”

No injuries were reported, but Schnipper said the water used in the emergency response damaged the music equipment.

Located in a renovated carriage house, the club dates to 1965, and is among the best known of its kind in the United States. Few of the jazz luminaries of the decades since then have not performed there.

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Blues Alley was closed for 180 days during the pandemic before reopening to the public in September 2021. In a tweet Tuesday evening, the club said that it had survived problems created by the coronavirus, so it would “survive this set back.”

On Wednesday, the sign outside the club read, “Like a Phoenix We Will Rise.”

Schnipper conceded that the quote might suggest that there had indeed been a fire.

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