Village Gate club owner, Art D’Lugoff, dies

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updated 12:02 a.m. ET Nov. 8, 2009

NEW YORK - Art D'Lugoff, who owned the famed Village Gate nightclub in New York City, has died. He was 85.

D'Lugoff died Wednesday at a Manhattan hospital. His brother, Burt D'Lugoff, said a cause of death was not yet known.

D'Lugoff opened the Greenwich Village club in 1958. He hired blacklisted singers Paul Robeson and Pete Seeger and fired Dustin Hoffman as a waiter. Hoffman, then a struggling actor, later said he was so distracted by the performers that he neglected customers.

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Other performers included jazz greats John Coltrane, Miles Davis and Thelonious Monk.

The Village Gate closed in 1994.

Beside his brother, D'Lugoff is survived by his wife, Avital Achai, a son and three daughters.