On Sunday night, a new gay men's strip club opened at 440 Broadway. It is called Magnum 54 and it was to be only the second serious entry of men-for-men strip joints in recent memory. The gays who frequent this sort of thing were very excited about the new venue, particularly because it described itself as upscale, guaranteed muscled men, and was to offer "No G-STRING LAP DANCES."
It was an utter disaster. CONTINUED »
It's adorable to watch Amy Sacco, the woman responsible for turning West 27th Street into the bridge-and-tunnel police state it has become, take a crap on New York nightlife. "Most everything's overrated. Even I'm overrated!" [NYDN] Funny! And true! New York's nightspots are playgrounds for bottle service and exclusivity, which has become a commodity itself, which means we get to stamp an "overrated" label on it. Case in point? Room Service, which billed itself as a lounge with all the amenities of a hotel, is heading into the crapper, and that unbearable pair of haunts, Home and Guest House, are "closed until further notice." Sacco, meanwhile, continues to let Bungalow 8 whore itself out to those grasping on to its expired coolness factor. Oh, and she's "developing a club at the Hard Rock in Vegas and touts London as much more interesting than NYC." Two so very underrated destinations.
"A bouncer at an East Village bar called Sing Sing Karaoke took a bullet to the chest early Saturday after breaking up a series of melees, police and witnesses said.
"As someone belted out Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" on stage, Carlos Salome staggered into the bar around 3 a.m. screaming that he'd been shot.
"'He was yelling, 'My arm, my arm!" said playwright Marissa Kamin, who was inside Sing Sing at the time of the shooting." [NYDN]
BEATRICE OUT Joining the list of ultra exclusive nightspots with big egos who get shut down, the Beatrice Inn, on West 12th Street, was shut down last night. The music stopped at 2am. The speculation about them not having a proper liquor license began at 2:01am. [DBTH]
Because he was clearly not invited to Jenna Bush's wedding tomorrow in Texas, New York City refugee Fabian Basabe found himself in Los Angeles, at the nightspot Crown Room, being arrested for peeing in an alley behind the club. [P6] His attorney blames Basabe's "bladder problem" and the fact that the "entry way [to the club] was very congested." And not because he had drank too much before arriving and found trouble being let into the venue.
The Stoli Hotel, a press-happy pop-up hotel that officially opened last night at 330 West Street at Houston, is also, officially, a clusterfuck.
We're told last night's opening, with DJ Juice, which played host to any number of simultaneous events and was graced by the presence of Chace Crawford and Jason Lewis, was "terrible," a "clusterfuck," and a "disaster," according to various attendees. "The crowd was so crazy and lists were fucked up so I left," says one. "My friend went in and turned around and left. Said it was awful."
Expect more of the same, since the Stoli Hotel be headquarters for a number of coming events. Among them: CONTINUED »
Two Manhattan nightspots were raided this week as police cracked down on liquor license violations, we hear. 1Oak (from Richie Akiva, Scott Sartiano, Jeffrey Jah, and Ronnie Madra), where Sophia Bush canoodles with costars, and Upstairs (from Danny A., Jordan Harris, and Matthew Isaacs) were both cleared out on Wednesday night for having improper, or non-existent, licenses. They remained closed last night.
* Update: Upstairs reopens and, says one knowledgeable source, 1Oak was never closed.
RINGSIDE Watch New York City's nightclub promoters battle each other in this comments thread.
You can rate your professor. You can rate your cop. Now, most importantly to New Yorkers, you can rate your club promoter.
RateMyPromoter.com, the brainchild of DNR Entertainment duo Bruno and Taahir, lets you can abandon those Facebook groups where you've been complaining about being overcharged for bottle service or not getting past the velvet rope even thought YOUR NAME IS ON THE GUEST LIST OMG!!!
Promoters are ranked in Party Quality, Sex Appeal, Pull, Event Planning, and Guest Treatment. (How many spam emails they send out every week is not, apparently, a quality worth grading.)
Below, we take a look at some of the city's most notorious gateways to entry. CONTINUED »
Nightclub impresario and chess champ Noah Tepperberg puts down his BlackBerry for long enough to mince words with Portfolio's Lloyd Grove, who's gone from reporting on the antics of celebrity life in short form to reporting on the antics of celebrity life in long form.
Tepperberg, seen here with biz partner Jason Strauss and an unidentified blonde, is, of course, the co-owner of Marquee and a lead at Strategic Group, the special events and marketing giant that's also in the business of celebrity wrangling. (He was also featured in Bar Mitzvah Disco.)
The common masses will blame him for what nightlife has become: velvet ropes and bottle service (just banned in Boston!). The privileged set will celebrate him, also, for what nightlife has become: more exclusive, more parties. And for the uninitiated, he will explain the difference — why there is still a line down the street to get into Marquee, and why you're probably standing in it instead of inside, on a banquette. CONTINUED »
Downstairs is the new Upstairs. No. Literally. That swell Soho nightspot Upstairs, where the hip celebrities go to eschew the Waverly, 1 Oak, or, god, Tenjune, has spawned Downstairs, an 11pm-7am eatery located directly beneath it at 95 Spring Street. It's the branchild of Danny A. and Matthew Isaacs, with menu items like Studio 54 Disco Fries – they'll set you back 50 bucks, but they're served with sparklers and a cute waitress – and it has its own vertical pecking order: Upstairs patrons may head downstairs for a bite, but just because you're eating at Downstairs, don't think you've got a free ride to go Upstairs. Got it?
[Image]
Have you heard? Journalists are getting old. AND! Losing their jobs. It's not really going to affect most of America, since they're not exactly reading newspapers anyhow, and Digg.com suffices for staying in tune with the news cycle. But their job losses are affecting some folks, namely: bar owners. Journalist watering holes are the ones facing the silent deaths thanks to shrinking news media budgets; no longer do they have a steady stream of reporter patrons walking through their doors, expense accounts or not. It's quite sad, actually. EXCEPT! It's not like The Waverly Inn is going anywhere. After all, that place is owned by the biggest celebrity tabloid editor in all of the world, and boy does he ever drink.
Why isn't Baird Jones' memorial party being held at Webster Hall, where he was the "art curator" and rumored to have been paid $500 everytime he got Page Six to mention it? Good question. Better question: Why is tomorrow's event being held at The Plumm, a club he tried to have closed and whose owner, Noel Ashman, Jones described as a "crook" whose "middle name is 'fraud'"? Since he couldn't publicly bash The Plumm, as he needed inside access to do his "reporting," Jones privately corresponded with alleged Plumm vandal Ivy Supersonic; the two of them were well aware of Ashman's tendency to stiff the very club promoters responsible for filling his venue with maybe-of-age models. Ashman denies the charge. [NYM]
PARTY FOUL Like fall's new looks, Fashion Week is supposed to preview the new It-venues, with labels hosting their after-parties at the newest, most velvet-y roped nightspots. Why, then, is the only new venue opening the Miami-import Mansion? [men.style.com]
I AM LEGEND It's not quite a New Year's Eve party, but tonight at The Plumm guests will be treated to a few songs performed by John Legend, who always seems to pop up at The Bloc Group events. Macy Gray – who, this rumor suggests, is still alive – is said to possibly be joining him on stage in between DJ duties with Funk Master Flex. Kanye West and Kirsten Dunst, meanwhile, will glare at you from secluded tables.
It's hard to feel bad for the nightclub Home, which is at least 38 percent responsible for turning West 27th Street into B&T-ville. But after forking over a huge retainer to Susan Blonde PR, as well as a cheque for expenses to send out a batch of expensive press kits to journalists through the town, you might have cause to feel a little sympathy.
Because Susan Blonde f-ed up real bad. CONTINUED »
We didn't much care for the New York Times' overly long, overly nuanced look at the hardworking life of people who own trashy local nightclubs and pretend to shirk exclusivity while "secretly" pandering to a celebrity/unrealistically attractive clientèle.
We did, however, commend the efforts of their innovative staff photographer. That long, panoramic shot of the pompous clubowners taken with a wide-angled lens and bird's eye viewfinder? Genius. If you squint your eyes and look at it from just the right angle, Butter impresario Richie Akiva (second from right) almost looks normal-sized! Almost.
[Image via NYT]
Judging by reality TV, you would never guess that black models are having trouble finding work.
Tyson Beckford has inked a deal to star with Nikki Taylor in Make Me A Supermodel, Bravo's not-very-subtle answer to America's Next Top Model.
Instead of a panel of model hasbeens and pseudo drag queens, this show will rely on on viewer voting to determine who is still in the running to be America's next top model its winner. With any luck, the public will be able to pick a model who is thin enough to actually work in modeling.
Rejoice, Guidos! Today is the day you can get your hands on Rob The Bouncer's non-fictional-ish tell-all Clublife: Thugs, Drugs, and Chaos at New York City's Premier Nightclubs. Even more exciting for you than the chance to relive your 4am's at "Axis" is that Rob's real identity is set to be revealed on the book's publication date. Which is, um, today. So start caring and such!
[Image via UD]
Turns out self-professed nightlife impresario David Jaffee uses Facebook for more than pushing his parties. We hear he's also been using the social networking service to go on the prowl, messaging PYTs with date requests. "Not my style but it gave me a hearty laugh," says one recipient who let the note go unacknowledged.
How he finds the time to take girls out for a quiet evening of witty banter over a bottle of Bordeaux is anyone's guess, since he spends most evenings greasing the hands of club owners from W. 14th to 29th.
Editorial Director
