“We felt since Sugarland was closed and TNT closed, that there was a gap,” Carson explains. The bar’s shift happened shortly after the closing of Williamsburg gay bar This N’ That, which left some bemoaning the small number of LGBTQ+ spaces left in Brooklyn. But once Pierce offered him The Rosemont as a new project, he jumped at the opportunity. He had left New York for Arizona, leaving the whopping four bars he owned or managed in the process. The Rosemont was a fresh start for Carson too, in a way. Most people are too cold to try new spaces, and many performers and hosts already have their regular haunts. But embarking on a new venture during the winter months, Carson explains to me in one of The Rosemont’s booths one afternoon, isn’t exactly easy. This isn’t an incredibly new change for the bar they had a soft re-opening event back in December. However, it doesn’t appear that The Rosemont is causing too much of a fuss, as there are only about 12 noise complaints made via 311 (all of which have been resolved) in the past six months, according to NYC Open Data. In 2015, B+B reported that its neighbors weren’t so welcoming of Pierce, whose last bar had a reputation for debauchery. The Rosemont’s initial concept (image courtesy of The Rosemont) Enter Troy Carson, previously known for opening Williamsburg gay bars Metropolitan and Sugarland and managing East Village spots Nowhere Bar and Phoenix, who now serves as The Rosemont’s general manager.
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Hopeful as Pierce was for this new, classier direction, seven days a week of jazz didn’t prove entirely fruitful. But recently they brought on someone new, switching saxophones for death drops.
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Rather than carrying on the wild spirit of Trash, The Rosemont was poised to be more mature, a jazz club slinging bespoke cocktails and small plates. Nowadays, this is just an average Wednesday night at The Rosemont, a newer project from Trash Bar’s Aaron Pierce that initially opened in Bushwick last May. Where a kitchen once sizzled, a DJ now spins. They’re hooting and hollering, throwing dollar bills into the air as a drag queen named Ruby Fox, with long hair and an outfit reminiscent of an underground fetish party, lip syncs and launches into a back handspring. People crowd into the rear area of a Bushwick bar.