With their 300-percent liquor markups and capricious, power-wielding bouncers, nightclubs are hardly known as bastions of fairness and decency. So it should come as little surprise that they might be charging their customers illegal fees—and no, we’re not just talking about the drink prices. (Seriously though, $18 for a vodka soda? What is this, prohibition?) Read More
Right now, No. 8 is the most exclusive club in New York, unless you count the Zodiac, which consists of 12 male blue-blood WASPs, one of whom has to die before a new member can join. While more diverse and democratic, No. 8 does have a strict door policy. To get in, it helps if you’re famous, or know owner Bobby Rossi of LDV Hospitality or “brand partner” Amy Sacco, or preferably all three.
In his New York Times profile of Ms. Sacco (“The Empress Is In”), writer Bob Morris captured the scene at No. 8 on opening night last May, noting that patrons in the upstairs “rec room” were selecting old records and handing them to “a bearded deejay.”
I knew that had to be DJ Uncle Mike, who stopped shaving in 1990 and used to spin at Bungalow 8 and said things like “psyched,” “groovy,” “cool,” “groovy cool,” “joyous,” “happy,” “beautiful,” “lovely,” “blessed,” “lucky,” “good time,” “all good” and “life’s good.”
When Bungalow closed in 2009, along with Siberia and the Beatrice Inn, nightlife began to suck for me, especially after I found myself being picked up by two bouncers at Kenmare and bounced headfirst onto the sidewalk. Shamed, I fled to Park Slope. Soon, I felt so estranged from humanity I could only connect with my geriatric cat. Why don’t we all join the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement and return the Earth to the critters? I thought. Read More
SoHo is so last century. The Meatpacking District is so last decade. The Lower East Side is so last year. These days, all the cool kids are partying in Sheepshead Bay, Crain’s reports.
Last we heard, Sheepshead Bay was a quiet waterfront community populated by a disproportionate number of seafood restaurants and extermination companies. But these days, Emmons Avenue—the waterfront strip—is apparently a Russian-inflected combination of South Beach and Jersey Shore, with noveau riche Eastern Europeans slurping expensive vodka and causing traffic jams of Mercedes and BMWs. Read More
Back in July, the website Brokelyn threw a party at Williamsburg’s Crown Victoria that it dubbed “Salute Your Jorts.” The theme of the evening was summer camp. A “bug juice cocktail” was just $4. In addition to Ping-Pong and bocce, the planned activities included spin the bottle and making friendship bracelets and macaroni art. Attendees were told, “don’t forget clean undies, just in case they get strung up the flagpole.” It sounded horrible, the low-water mark of a trend in recent years of turning bars into amusement parks for adults. Read More
We like to think that because most New Yorkers live above the shop, we are the restaurant capital of the world. Yet even with the heralded arrival of Danny Bowien, it turns out San Francisco kicks our (pork) butt when it comes to restaurants per capita. Even worse, so does Fairfield County in Connecticut and–gulp–Long Island. Read More
Maybe residents of lower Park Avenue thought they’d see their property values rise with the introduction of an (ostensibly) hip, expensive, shiny Gansevoort Hotel in their neighborhood. After all, the hotel was one of the first signs that the nu-Meatpacking District had become a nightlife beast onto itself; how could this not work out well for local residents? Read More
After a high-profile shutdown that involved a nexus of outrage gathering local politicians, celebrities, and nightlife, the SoHo nightclub that yielded the thrown bottle heard ’round the world—W.I.P., the site of the Drake and Chris Brown brawl—is on the way to re-opening. Read More
So, what’s it take for a club to get shut down by the NYPD these days? Read More
Andre Saraiva doesn’t just own the keys (and velvet rope) to Chinatown’s most impossibly hip club, Le Baron, but the Frenchman-about-town fancies himself an artist as well. To wit, his first major solo show—subtly titled Andrépolis—premiered last night at Bowery gallery The Hole. It has been characterized as an “urban phantasmagoria” by Purple Magazine‘s Olivier Zahm, who also explains that “the exhibition has a surprise at the end, a carousel for adults, for those who are not afraid to ride the wings of desire.”
And oh, does it ever. Read More
Even as the city has gotten squeaky clean over the past decade, in some ways, it is still as nasty as the Bowery at its worst. Case in point: Booze hounds. According to The Times, drinking-related problems are at modern highs. Read More
