On Dubois Street in Newburgh, a long-abandoned church has begun a second life as an eclectic new cultural venue. After a three-year renovation, the building reopened in September 2025 as The Ellis, a performance and gathering space founded by Albert Mizrahi and Mike Mamiye that aims to reflect the region’s creative diversity.
When the partners first encountered the property, it wasn’t much to look at. “It was rotting,” Mizrahi says. “It had been sitting for about 30 years with water damage, leaks, and piles of stuff everywhere. But when we started uncovering things—natural wood floors, higher ceilings, sliding doors—you could see the beauty that had been hidden.”
Rather than strip the building of its history, the renovation focused on revealing it. Drop ceilings came down, original architectural elements resurfaced, and the sanctuary was transformed into a flexible performance hall where audiences gather close to the stage beneath soaring ceilings and stained glass.
The result is a venue that feels both expansive and intimate. “You’re not rushing the stage,” Mizrahi says, “but you feel like you’re one with the performer.”
The Ellis is part of a broader expansion of small-to-midsize performance spaces in the Hudson Valley, including St. Rita’s Music Room and Savage Wonder in Beacon, the Grace Note speakeasy at the Stissing Center in Pine Plains, Tempo in Kingston, the Indigo Room at the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center, Assembly in Kingston, and the Lucky Dog Listening Room in Beacon. Together, they reflect a growing appetite for venues that prioritize intimacy, experimentation, and direct engagement between artists and audiences.
The project—dubbed “Project Up the Hill” during its early stages—was also about expanding Newburgh’s cultural map beyond the well-trodden waterfront and Liberty Street corridor. “There’s a lot more shine to Newburgh,” Mizrahi says. “This felt like an opportunity to highlight another part of the city.”
Construction stretched across three years, partly because the owners were simultaneously renovating residential properties nearby and relying on the same contractors for multiple projects. But the slower timeline had an unexpected upside: it allowed the founders to build relationships with artists, producers, and organizers long before the doors opened.
Those collaborations now define The Ellis’s programming philosophy. Instead of operating as a single-genre venue, Mizrahi and Mamiye see themselves as facilitators—hosts who provide space for the Hudson Valley’s creative ecosystem. “There’s so much variety here,” Mamiye says. “We meet producers with great ideas and followings who just need a bigger stage. Our role is opening the doors.”
The calendar reflects that approach. A typical week might feature comedy shows, live music, theater, dance parties, or wellness gatherings. In March, the venue launches Haus, a Sunday series that blends meditation and music: yoga and sound baths in the afternoon transition gradually into Afro-jazz house and late-day dance music under the glow of stained glass.
Elsewhere on the schedule are performances by regional and touring musicians (Irish singer-songwriter Darren Kiely on March 22; folk rockers Palmyra on April 11), themed dance nights, and visiting DJs—including a recent disco party headlined by Soul Clap’s Eli Goldstein that turned the sanctuary into a retro dance floor complete with impromptu cartwheel contests.
Moments like that confirm the founders’ instincts about what the building could become. “You look around and see longtime Newburgh residents, younger crowds, people visiting from around the Hudson Valley all in the same room,” Mizrahi says. “Everyone’s experiencing something together. That’s when it clicks.”
The Ellis’s ambitions extend beyond performances. The owners plan to develop a food hall called “Seasons of the Valley,” highlighting local chefs and farm-to-table ingredients. Located along the building’s north side near Montefiore St. Luke’s Cornwall Hospital, the space is envisioned as a daytime gathering place for residents, workers, and visitors, with grab-and-go options and room to linger.
Ultimately, Mizrahi and Mamiye hope the venue grows into a cultural anchor for the city. “In five or ten years,” Mamiye says, “I’d love to see The Ellis established as one of the places that helped shape Newburgh’s creative scene—a venue where artists are excited to play and people come from all over to see what’s happening.”
For now, the building’s revival is already doing something simpler and perhaps more powerful: Bringing people together in a room that waited decades to be filled again.
Because that’s what city residents needed?! It’s on a block that needs housing and in an area that’s now being gentrified since the success of retail gentrification across Broadway…….forcing generations out of the city