Imagine this: after having been closed for almost 40 years, the Upstage Club in Asbury Park reopens and invites the local youth to come and hang out and play music all night. New bands are formed. New guitar heroes born. New stars are discovered. And maybe most important, kids with nothing else to do than hang on the streets would have a place to be.

Does it sound like an impossible dream? Well, not to a guy named Rich Yorkowitz, who has bought the old Upstage building and is planning to restore not only the building itself, but what it used to be. He wants, in other words, to bring back the Upstage Club and turn it into exactly what it was around 1970: a musical haven for anyone with an instrument.

But before this dream can be realized, Rich Yorkowitz needs all sorts of licenses and permissions, plus tons of money to finance the refurbishment of the building, which these days is more or less a ruin. All of those things  can prove to be huge challenges. However, what he needs most right now is the moral support of people all over the world who want to see this happen. So if you are so inclined, and not least if you actually experienced the Upstage Club in its heydays, post a comment here and let the Asbury Park officialsknow why this thing needs to become reality and what it could do for the city.

Personally, having stood outside the building and tried to sense what it must have been like all those decades ago, I find it to be an amazing, and quite unexpected, opportunity to see the possibility of something like that happening again. It doesn't all have to be MySpace. Music still needs to be played and created in a live setting. Kids still need to get together and do magic things with their instruments. We may not get another Bruce Springsteen out of it or anything resembling that, but less would do. Anything that could turn bored, destructive kids into creative musicians - or even just spectators to creative musicians -should be heartily embraced, especially by local authorities.

No matter what, it will be interesting to see what happens to the old building. The fact that it's still standing is somewhat of a miracle in itself. To see it flourish again as a music club would just be mind-blowing and a good reason for any music lover to travel to Asbury Park.

The building as it looked in 2001.