Nightclubs were big business now. If you carried a black AmEx card, you could count on getting in, somewhere. \u201cBottle service\u2014it was a killer,\u201d one club worker recalls. \u201cBecause now you didn\u2019t have to look right to get in. The owners didn\u2019t care about the quality of the crowd. The bottom line was the money. It was, Sell those tables, sell those tables, up-sell, magnums, bottle minimums. And you now had\u2014forgive me for saying it\u2014every undesirable seated in a nightclub.\u201d<\/p>\n
The same summer, B.E.D., which had opened in January on the sixth floor, debuted its rooftop lounge. \u201cThat\u2019s when all the bridge-and-tunnel guys came in,\u201d a 27th Street veteran recalls. \u201cThese are the guys who brought the Jersey girls and the short shorts. They mobbed the whole street. And then, when you walked to Bungalow, you saw seven trashy blonde chicks standing outside begging to be let in, and guess what? It takes away from the atmosphere.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the summer of 2006, the street crawled with people\u2014forcing the police to barricade both ends. Masses of visored men in bright T-shirts stumbled through, smoking joints, carrying plastic cups, urinating on the walls. Thin girls toddled out in spike heels. It was a boozy Canc\u00fan North. People threw up in front of buildings and on their clothes; turned away at the door, they spat at the doormen. \u201cWe\u2019d find people passed out in the bathroom,\u201d recalls a former employee of B.E.D. \u201cYou would think it was a dead body. Passed out, like scary passed out, like smack them, pick them up, they\u2019re like Jell-O, like someone took their spine out. And on the street. You would literally see people face down in the gutter.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
And the keeper:<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not about who you know, it\u2019s how you carry yourself,\u201d says one visibly excited man, tonguing his teeth and working his jaw as he strides with his friend toward the bar in back. \u201cI\u2019m the guy that walked in, said \u2018hi,\u2019 paid for my drinks, did my blow in the bathroom, and came out smiling. They respect me for it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
The importance:<\/strong> Not much frankly, except for the lesson of keeping people from New Jersey out of your club if you want it not to be a cesspool of disgusting human beings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Article: An excellent article in New York magazine by Isaiah Wilner detailing the rise and fall of 27th Street. Choice bits (since the article is long, read it at the New Yorker website): Nightclubs were big business now. If you carried a black AmEx card, you could count on getting in, somewhere. \u201cBottle service\u2014it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
The Short, Drunken Life of Club Row - Prose Before Hos<\/title>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n\t \n\t \n\t \n