Another club, and indeed another club where I spent a considerable amount of time - but only really in one section of it. While places I visited often, often end up with shorter writeups - you can see how terse the RetroReview posts for my most regular pubs ended up, there's a lot to write about with POD. Thankfully, someone's already written up a lot of what I'd need to do otherwise!
The POD Complex - the "Place of Dance", although I suspect this is a backronym - was Dublin's first modern nightclub, but in a very not modern building. It was in the bulk of the former Harcourt Street Railway Station, including the actual train hall and much of the undercrofting; but not the ticket hall (this is the unconnected S3454 Odeon), or the elements of the vaults in retail use.
POD opened in 1993, founded by John Reynolds, the nephew of the provincial dance hall owner (and former Taoiseach) Albert Reynolds. Reynolds - John - was only in his mid 20s at the time.
The history is already documented elsewhere, and better than I'll re-research:
The making of Dublin’s The Pod and RedBox nightclubs - 909originals
Going on the physical setup side only, two additional areas were added to the complex, all within the train station - the Chocolate Bar in 1994 and RedBox in 1996.
The original Chocolate Bar became the more rock oriented Crawdaddy in 2004, with a "new Chocolate Bar" opening in 2009 in what I believe was originally a lobby area.
In 2006, the RedBox venue upstairs changed to Tripod; which is where I attended the most - if I have time, I'll dig up some of the many ticket stubs and wristbands I have from seeing some of the biggest DJs that there were in the 00s here. While POD was a dance music nightclub, open pretty much all the time you'd expect; RedBox/Tripod was a venue and hosted anything and everything stylistically.
The entire complex shut for good in 2012; and lay idle for many years before conversion to offices. Some of the space had been offices from the 60s to 90s to begin with. The end wall, once punctured by a runaway train, now has rather more openings in it than when it just had the door to RedBox/Tripod
POD still exist as a festival promoter. John Reynolds died suddenly in 2018, aged just 52. He had been planning a new music venue on Clarendon Market at the time of his death.
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