The world-famous Viper Room has been slated for demolition.

The 101-year-old building, originally a grocery store, began to feature live music in the 1940s. It has been the Cotton Club, the Greenwich Village Inn, the Rue Angel, the Melody Room, Filthy McNasty’s (the facade was recently recreated at the Viper Room for filming of “Daisy Jones and the Six”), the Central, and, since 1993, the Viper Room.

The club has appeared in music videos (Go-Go’s, “Our Lips Are Sealed”) and on film (“The Doors”, “Valley Girl”). Some of the world’s greatest musicians have played at the club (Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, Elvis Costello, Iggy Pop, Courtney Love, Lenny Kravitz, Sheryl Crow, Bruce Springsteen, Natalie Cole, Weezer, Pearl Jam, Queens of the Stone Age, and too many more to list here).

And yes, it is notorious for Molly Bloom’s poker game (“Molly’s Game”) and for the tragic death of River Phoenix.

The Viper Room is an irreplaceable part of West Hollywood’s history. A reconfigured club in a new building is just not going to be the same - part of the Viper Room experience is in navigating the club’s labyrinthine, two-level layout. The plan for 8850 Sunset has also been linked to possible corruption. 

We are asking the property owners and the City of West Hollywood to treat the Viper Room with the respect it has earned - ideally by leaving it alone (the proposed 15-story development will dwarf everything in West Hollywood), or, failing that, by incorporating the existing building into the new one (the Coca-Cola bottling plant was created by combining four older buildings).

The Viper Room is simply too important to lose.

(Signers, please use the comments to remind the developers and the city why this place matters.)