Five Spot Café

The Five Spot Café was a jazz club located at 5 Cooper Square in the Bowery neighbourhood of New York City.

In 1937, Salvatore Termini (b. 1884) purchased what was then known as the Bowery Café, a working-class bar located under the Third Avenue El. In 1946, two of Termini's sons, Joe and Ignatze (Iggy), returned from the war and helped run the bar. In 1951, the sons purchased the business from their father and renamed it the No. 5 Bar.

In late 1955 the Third Avenue El was demolished and the city embarked on a revitalization of the Bowery. During this time many artists were drawn to the area due to the cheaper rent prices compared to Greenwich Village. Pianist Don Shoemaker was among the influx of artists who moved to the Bowery. Occupying a studio at 1 Cooper Square above the No. 5 Bar, Shoemaker hosted jam sessions during which he would purchase beer from the Terminis. Shoemaker eventually told Joe that if the bar would purchase a piano, he and his band would play. Joe bought a used upright piano, received a cabaret licence on 30 August 1956, and opened a week later under the name the Five Spot Café. Artists such as painters Herman Cherry, David Smith, Willem de Kooning, Franz Kline, Joan Mitchell, Alfred Leslie, Larry Rivers, Grace Hartigan, Jack Tworkov, Michael Goldberg, Roy Newell, Howard Kanovitz and writers Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Frank O'Hara, Ted Joans, and Gregory Corso began frequenting the club.

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