A building fire this past weekend at 1 Kendall Square in Cambridge has put multi-media live music venue Redstar Union out of commission until further notice. The state-of-the-art facility — which has hosted rock shows, Boston Music Awards parties, and intimate, story-teller performances from national and local musicians, all while streaming them online for global viewing — suffered significant water and smoke damage as firefighters battled a blaze that also affected nearby businesses like Flattop Johnny’s.
Cambridge’s WickedLocal site reported that the Sunday morning two-alarm fire caused an estimated $1 million total damages. Investigations are ongoing.
Meanwhile, all upcoming shows at the Kendall Square facility have been cancelled. Here is official word from the team at Redstar:
Friends,
This weekend one of the buildings adjacent to our studio experienced a fire that damaged several of our most immediate neighbors, including Flat Top Johnny’s, Beantowne Coffee and The Blue Room restaurant.
Flames from their building travelled through the ductwork into ours, and as part of firefighter’s efforts to battle the blaze, our studio sustained significant water damage.
We deeply regret that for now, we’ll be canceling all programming until further notice. We are still in the long process of cleanup, safely restoring power and assessing the full extent of the damage.
It’s clear that we have work ahead of us before we’re able to resume operations, but we intend to bring the studio back online as soon as possible and will keep our clients, partners and friends informed as we know more about when that might be.
Sincerely,
Jeet, Steve, Beth & Mike
Redstar Media
John Adams, the owner of Flattop Johnny’s, also of 1 Kendall Square, posted a similar message to Facebook yesterday. We’ll post more information to come as it becomes available. In the meantime, here’s a look inside some Redstar shows from the past few years…