Brooklyn Bowl Founder Peter Shapiro on Riding Out the Pandemic, and What’s Next

“It feels like New York is starting to come back,” says veteran live-music promoter and venue owner Peter Shapiro , speaking from his Manhattan office on a mid-September afternoon. “There’s a lot of activity on the street right now,” he says, glancing out his window. “People on the sidewalk, cars on the street, some buzz in the air. People are wearing masks, but we’re starting to get used to it. “Obviously, it’s not where it was, pre-pandemic,” he concludes. “But it’s also nowhere near as empty as it was early in the summer.” Over the past 25 years, Shapiro, 48, has become a New York live-entertainment institution as established and recognizable as some of the city’s biggest venues. In the mid-’90s at the ripe old age of 23, he took over ownership of the legendary downtown jam-band mecca Wetlands — where Pearl Jam, Phish, Oasis and the Dave Matthews Band all played early in their careers. Over the intervening years he’s become a serial entrepreneur with a showman’s instincts and a flair for emerging technologies, and not just in the New York area. In 2009, Shapiro and former Wetlands GM Charley Ryan founded the Brooklyn Bowl […]

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