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Nightlife

By Kat Stoeffel 7/02/12 5:45pm

Nightlife

9 Photos

Loren Kramar, Avery Singer, Daniele Frazier

Hard-to-Explain Start-Up ‘The Cools’ Throws Hard-to-Describe Party

School may be out for the summer, but the downtown kids were in attendance at the Old School Wednesday evening for a so-called “jamborée” in honor of Olivier van Themsche’s start-up, The Cools.

The Cools is a social shopping site that’s sort of like Etsy, but for people who live in New York or Paris or want to look like they do. A “jamborée,” The Observer learned, is sort of like a party, but with shopping and performances.

To date, life has mercifully failed to imitate social networks. But wandering the three floors of the converted Nolita elementary school was not entirely unlike discovering new designers and boutiques while clicking around The Cools. The site boasts a list of “curators” like Erin Fetherston and Kathy Grayson, who drew a line down the block, but there was no list.  Read More

By Aaron Gell 4/12/12 8:40am

Nightlife

9 Photos

Veep Premiere

Vice Squad: Ray Kelly, Bill Keller & Fran Lebowitz Hit the Premiere of Veep

Armando Iannucci’s new HBO series Veep, which premiered on Tuesday night at the Time Warner Center, looks like a winner—more Biden than Bentsen. Starring Julia Louis-Dreyfus, the shaky-cam comedy is to the West Wing what a bucket of Popeye’s is to a bowl of flax-dusted Brussels sprouts (less wholesome but considerably tastier).

During the cocktail hour preceding the screening, the premise of the show gave us an excuse to ask everyone : Who is your favorite vice president? Fortunately, guests were in a festive and charitable mood. No doubt they were already anticipating the post-screening filet mignon awaiting them at Porter House.

“You know what? I’ve never been asked that before,” Fran Lebowitz replied when we tracked her down in a corner of the 10th-floor reception area. “That’s a great question.” She thought a little. “Well, there was Johnson, and he became the president. Which is why you can’t nominate someone like Sarah Palin.” Read More

By Nate Freeman 1/24/12 6:53pm

Nightlife

Illo: David Saracino

The Wee Hours: A Reporter Goes from Soft Openings to Hard Time

The Observer was arrested last Friday for entering the subway through an emergency exit. We were cuffed, frisked and led by a police officer through the station. Commuters with tote bags stared.

We found ourselves in a holding cell in the Union Square station precinct with a man named Felix, who had been brought in for sharing a MetroCard with his pregnant wife. Two others came, and then left with desk appearance tickets.

But we would be joining Felix in central booking. We had a warrant, an open container summons, a relic from a summer in 2008. Ah, right: the G Train, with that girl, drinking Sparks out of a brown paper bag. Read More

By Drew Grant 12/16/11 12:25pm

Nightlife

Hiro to close in March (Patrick McMullan)

Martime Hotel's Hiro Ballroom and Matsuri Shutter; Reborn Through Marc Packer

Hiro Ballroom, the two-story subterranean dance hall loved by hipsters and Midtowners alike, will be closing its doors come March, according to employees at the Maritime Hotel, where the venue is located. Also closing at the hotel is Matsuri restaurant. And while none of this should come as a huge surprise–rumors have been swirling about who would take over management of the club and restaurant space since the fall– now we finally have an answer to that particular burning nightlife question. Marc Packer–whose name is usually synonymous with the Strategic Group founders like Noah Tepperberg, Jason Strauss, and Rich Wolff– will be taking over management duties at the Maritime spaces. Mr. Packer is best known for his work at Las Vegas’ LAVO club as well as Tao.

So what can we expect in the space where Hiro and Matsuri once were? Something that sounds suspiciously like a Stefon-themed nightclub, if his former work is any indication. Read More

By Nate Freeman 12/14/11 4:16pm

Nightlife

ALima4_042706

The Wee Hours: Pirelli's Nude Calendar Girls at the Armory

Supermodel Isabeli Fontata walked to the edge of the Corsican cliff in a bikini bottom that matched her own skin tone, and once she took off that thin bit of cloth, she had nothing on. Her back arched and a hand went up to flutter wind-flung hair. She held her breasts and let them go, bearing them to the canyon below as the photographer Mario Sorrenti moved in, slowly, to snap the picture.

And then the video froze, leaving her nude, immobile figure projected upon an enormous screen. The audience went silent. We forgot we were watching a movie.

For The Observer, who is not a morning person, it was a lot to take in at 10 a.m. Read More

By Michael Orell 12/09/11 5:50pm

Nightlife

Courtesy W Hotel.

Mick Rock Shows Off His Pretty, Pretty Pictures at the W

Remember that great Sean John ad Mark Ronson was in 10 years ago? The Observer loved that ad. Sure we could have asked the producer whether married life had changed him,  or “what’s next,” but all we really wanted to know was whether it was P. Diddy’s idea or his to let the toothpick dangle so lazily in that print advertisement we once saw ages ago in VIBE. And as electronic rockers Phantogram left the stage of Symmetry Live—the W New York-Downtown’s music concert series—we asked him. Read More

By Nate Freeman 11/15/11 6:46pm

Nightlife

Illo: Peter Arkle

The Wee Hours: Close Encounters, Heavenly Bodies at Victoria's Secret Show

The first thing we noticed about the den of Angels was the smell.

Hours before the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show, the creaky freight elevator in the Lexington Avenue Armory rattled up to the fifth floor. As the doors opened, a sharp tang of beauty-product acid smacked up against us, a collision of perfumes cut with a sweet whiff of lotions, the clouds of hairspray gushing from big bottles and wafting throughout the space. Past two aisles of models in pink gowns, beyond the couch where the most beautiful women in the world sat tonging mounds of salad with silver implements, was Karlie Kloss, a St. Louis native who, at 19 years of age, may be the most important model in the world. Read More

By Nate Freeman 11/02/11 9:59am

Nightlife

Illo: Peter Oumanski

The Wee Hours: Midtown's Halloween Hall of Mirrors

“I don’t recognize you,” said a man in a black negligee, black corset, black heels and two stuck-on circles of black mesh, one covering his mouth and another covering his crotch. It was early Sunday evening, Halloween eve, and he was talking to a man in a dress, with pink hair.

Somehow, he managed to nestle a cigarette into the small indentation in the spandex oral wrapping. Read More

By Nate Freeman 10/25/11 7:09pm

Nightlife

NYObathtub

The Wee Hours: Nightlife's New Holiest of Holies

On one of the last busy evenings of Fashion Week, the suppertime clique that had turned up for the AnOther magazine dinner at the Fat Radish on Orchard was making the trek to the after-party. A breeze had split the night’s air. Most of the gang opted to walk, despite—or due to?—the hash brownies with which many, including The Observer, had topped off the meal. Read More