For artists and performers it was a golden age with clubs needing to book events seven-days-a-week. A glorious time when people went to clubs pretty much strictly to enjoy the music, and whether rap, soul, disco, dancehall, house, boogie, R&B, the music was incredible! Revisiting the Hedonistic Bliss of New York's Legendary '90s Nightlife Scene. - The Magic Drag Show : NYC, NYC Hip Hop vs Reggae Jewel Yacht Party Saturday Night Skyport Marina 2023, I'll Build a Staircase to Paradise - The Life of Bunny Mellon with Mac Griswold, Personal Assistant for Older New Yorkers in Manhattan, Man Defecates On Pride Flag In Dining Shed | NYC Top Stories, SNL, Late-Night Talk Shows In NYC Could Shut Down In Writers' Strike, Proposed Rent Hikes For 1M NYC Apartments Up For First Vote Tuesday. Manchester's Haienda - which was founded by Tony Wilson with money made by New Order's record sales - is where baggy was born. First we did Milky Way, then came PayDayanother hip-hop night and then Saturday night was our house night, $100,000 Bar, for which Keith Haring did the flyer. It didnt last long. Looking through old flyers is to walk through a ghost town buried under high-rise condos, Starbucks and CVS stores, and remarkably anonymous 21st century architecture. Club flyers, by design, were ephemeral objects distributed on street corners, outside of nightclubs and concert halls, in clothing stores and retail shops, and were not intended to be preserved for posterity. We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. The clubs made sure we got a DJ set AND a live show. Those flyers went everywhere. Owner Madden opened the club in the heart of Harlem, establishing a boozy destination for downtown white folks who wanted to hear the new Jazz craze sweeping the streets above 100th. Pictured: Debbie Harry on the stage before a performance. List of nightclubs in New York City - Wikipedia From Copacabana to Studio 54 here's a look at the clubs that set the standard for the New York social scene. These were not pick-up clubs or bottle bars. What made Danceteria such a perfect mess was the fact that the club received after-hours runoff from every type of club imaginable, from Studio 54 to CBGB to hip hop clubs to gay bars. I wouldn't remember the clubs as well if he didn't take the photos.. A 2015 survey of former nightclubs in the city identified 10 most historic ones, starting with the Cotton Club, . They were handed out by the hundreds on 14th Street and sat by the doors of Phat Farm, Supreme and Union. Excerpted from No Sleep: NYC Nightlife Flyers 19881999 by Adrian Bartos aka DJ Stretch Armstrong and Evan Auerbach, available now from powerHouse Books. Please also read our Privacy Notice and Terms of Use, which became effective December 20, 2019. Its a simple royal blue, glossy card adorned with an image of a 70s era Barry White. The MisShapes had everything you could want in a gala costumes, tourists, tight pants, and Leigh Lezark, Princess Coldstare herself. The venue shut down in 2012 and has since been turned into a NY Kids Club. At times, it seemed a continuation of the classic New York story one that was interrupted by Mayor Giulianis zero tolerance policies of the 90s, which included a moral crusade on nightlife by excavating and enforcing a race-dividing civic ordinance from the 1920s called a cabaret license at others it was a brand-new one with familiar roots. Serious house music fans will get their fix of trance, post-disco, and more at this smoky . The public has a right to art: the radical joy of Keith Haring, Abrief history of protest art from the 1940s until now - in pictures, Creative drive: Keith Haring's car canvases in pictures, From Basquiat to Jay Z: how the art world came to fully embrace hip-hop, Keith Haring review: the political side of a pop-art legend, Keith Haring, the Political Line review, Keith Haring's life was fleeting but his work endures, Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983, Love Saves the Day: A History of American Dance Music, 1970-79, Hold On to Your Dreams: Arthur Russell and the Downtown Music Scene, 1973-92, Giulianis zero tolerance policies of the 90s. The club moved uptown to West 54th in the early '90s, and the space is currently occupied by the dance club and rock venue Webster Hall. Tuesday May 12 2015. Yet, what changes when you leave a longtime residence? Since opening in May, Wiggle Room is one our favorite nightclubs in terms of aesthetics, cocktails, and clientele. The space is now occupied by Hi-Fi Bar, which happens to have one of the best and most elaborate custom jukebox systems in the world. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Paradise Garage, Keith Haring, Birthday Party for DJ Larry Levan. The streets were grimy and the neighborhoods segregated but in the club world, we were integrated and drugs were not necessarily part of the experience. Ive put my brain through some wear and tear over the years and honestly have a hard time remembering names of places I played last week, but I will never forget the name and address of that party: Nut n Honey at Tilt, 179 Varick Street (corner of King Street, for extra credit). One of the first jobs I could get in the scene was as assistant cashier at Milky Way. The place is so legendary that its famously filthy toilets were recreated for a punk art exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, but these days the building is the home of a retail outlet for menswear designer John Varvatos. And although set in the '90s, the decade saw the 2003 release of Macaulay Culkin's "Party . I didnt know that in order to get a job as a DJ you had to already be working as a DJ and be cool enough to know the people who were hiring them. The East Villages Fun Gallery, co-founded by arts doyenne Patti Astor (one of the stars of the first hip-hop film, 1982s Wild Style), presented the Bronxs finest graffiti writers next to future fine-art legends Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. Sweating and pulsing to the beat simultaneously with thousands of other people. This commercial building was home to the Beach Haven, Staten Island's sole lesbian bar in the 1970s and early 1980s. Memories. Spanning the late 1980s through the . His photographs have been published in Vogue, The New York Times, Newsweek, TIME, Rolling Stone, People, Vanity Fair, Cosmo, Details and GQ. Rock stars and artists treated Maxs like their own personal living room. When you look at a great club flyer, theres a beauty in the economy of the design. It wasnt just about the law. Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor began as another attempt to write that history of house, but ended up as a 500-page dive into a three-year period that exemplified the melting pot idea that had been synonymous with New York, yet hadnt been written about. Stunning Photos From 1990s Favorite NYC Nightclub - Patch The golden age of New York clubbing: 'We wanted to be part of something But in a way that is because of New Yorks success; because its influence helped grow dance scenes all over the world. Todd Terry, Backroom, Pal Joey, Masters at Work and Tony Humphries were some of my favorite producers that kept my feet itching to dance on most nights of the week. Other stories range from pure chaos -- Sid Vicious getting thrown in jail for attacking Patti Smiths brother -- to pure, weird boredom: David Bowie recalled meeting Iggy Pop there, describing it as Me, Iggy, and Lou Reed at one table with absolutely nothing to say to each other, just looking at each others eye makeup.. In the mid-1970s, he helped perfect record-scratching as one of the cornerstones of the Bronx culture that came to be known as hip-hop. Remembering Manhattan nightclubs | John Hemmer Archive Truly, the most amazing collection of people came to Milky Way whether it was Keith Haring, or John Kennedy Jr. & Darryl Hannah slumming it or whether it was the Jungle Brothers or Russell and Lyor and Fab Five Freddy. New York City nightlife has always been pivotal within pop culture. When we moved locations, we were able to tell the people who we REALLY wanted to be there and get it back to the core group. Coney Island High (15 St. Mark's Place) Coney Island High, located on 15 St. Mark's Place in Manhattan, was the most popular punk venue in New York through much of the '90s. On Now Bar and Lounge. Known for the sticker clad walls and prominent rock performances, this venue founded by Hilly Kristal helped to usher in new American music genres and revolutionize culture in downtown Manhattan. Wed cut em with those Slingline papercutters and hand em out at Mars and other spots. In time, I became a partner in Milky Way. Michael Fazakerley /Leandro Justen. I really have no idea how its endured there so long among the graduation photos, holiday snaps, etc. From the days of all-night jazz jams and hangover cures at the Plaza, the club scene in New York has undergone evolutions of pop, disco, punk, rock, trance, EDM and anything else that provides a sufficiently loud musical backdrop for sex, scandal, and the occasional bout of mayhem. Every night, caravans of upper crust clients would flock to the Cotton's plantation decor and old-South, white-gloved service, ignoring Prohibition with gusto as Duke Ellington led the house band. (And is a wonderful fact-meets-fiction preamble to Lawrences historical account.) I may have fantasized about DJing at these clubs from time to time but I harbored no grand illusions that Id be playing these places any time soon. This was still before [Rudy] Giuliani took over. The last 30 years have seen the citys meaningful party scene on the brink of extinction during one of the panels, Krivit put the number of cabaret licenses issued during the early 80s at 4,000; in 2016 it is around 120. As the aughts wind down, we took a look at a few of the memorable venues that we lost during the last decade. Brownies at 169 Avenue A was a hot spot during the "new rock revival" of the early 2000s, and hosted early gigs by The Strokes, Interpol, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Liars before shutting down in 2002. Deep Space is a party that, like the Loft, could be classified as much as a community social as a rave it took place on Mondays and had free entry before 11pm. L&L was the home of the infamous MisShapes, a weekly party that brought the hipster elite out from the shadows and into the southern West village to hear the amazing DJ work of Geordon Nicol, Leigh Lezark and Greg Krelenstein. Better yet, you could dance to that transformation. 30 Photos That Show Just How Insane The '90s Club Scene - BuzzFeed One entered, and there was a hierarchy of where one sat. Flashs skills at cutting up records, and his interpretation of the cross-genre flow at the heart of the citys original sound (disco, rap, funk, dance-punk, Latin, mutant electronic, all in the mix) were rapturous and timeless. In my mothers house, among the many family photos in the living room, sits, inexplicably, a flyer from Sweet Thang (a Tuesday night party I DJed for several years) in a very nice sterling silver frame. Looking back, Spa seemed to be holding onto a different era as a new business model of bottle service emerged. Founded by Italian immigrant John Perona as a speakeasy on 52nd street in 1931, El Morocco would become famous for its ostentatious zebra print interior as well as parade of the glamorous people (including Marilyn Monroe) who sought an escape from Prohibition. I started to get a sense of the Downtown scene, of different art coming into this moment, of an interesting coalition of artists, musicians, choreographers and DJs. Also, he was always taking photos. Mayor Rudy Giuliani had declared war on dance clubs, the days of the Club Kids were in their final throes and the reign of Peter Gatien and clubs like Tunnel were winding down. April 21, 2023. During the 1990s, photographer Steve Eichner documented the rowdy, over-the-top debauchery that was New York City's club scene and nightlife. 06/27/16. As the discussions of long-gone clubs gave way to movement on living, breathing dancefloors, the weight and spotlight of the citys history could be felt everywhere, in the crowd and in the DJ booth. The exhilaration of having all eyes on you. Either way, I got a callback and after a few more gigs, I earned the coveted kudos of having my name on a flyer. Reading Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor as a clubber in the city is to reflect not only on whats been lost over the past three decades, but on how the sounds, events and characters at the center of Lawrences story still influence NYCs nightlife. The first couple of years we handed them out ourselves. Let's revisit the blissfulness of New York 90's club scene. Flash, meanwhile, is riding his third wind. Search, watch, and cook every single Tasty recipe and video ever - all in one place! There were a lot of incentives for being extravagant. It's been said that New . Only Studio B can fit that bill. Bars & Nightlife - NYC LGBT Historic Sites Project Golden Years: New York Nightlife In The '50s - Ivy Style He and Bill had the best DJs in the city on rotation they certainly didnt need to give a gawky, teenage, no name a shot. New York City nightlife was undergoing a major transition at the dawn of the 21st century. Marquee New York. This will help to share the story with others. Luckily, I did a good job that night plus, it probably didnt hurt that I was cheap labor. And while the club remained successful for many years, it also spawned a number of imitators. Fresh out my freshman year at Vassar College, Id only been DJing about a year but I was already getting decent gigs that summer house parties, hip-hop open mic nights and more than a few not-entirely-cool bars around the Upper East Side. Le Clique, with its gold-painted dancers and anything-goes atmosphere, was a tiny slice of Ancient Rome for New Yorkers (those who could find its latest location, of course). Nells was the epitome of the exclusivity-obsessed 1980s, that not even the rich and famous could get into. Love Saves the Day began as a dissertation on house music and postmodernity, mutated into a quickie book about dance music culture, before his research brought him face to face with the then little-known story of a musical host named David Mancuso, his private weekly gatherings at a Soho loft, and all the DJs deeply influenced by it (including the legendary Larry Levan, and father of house music, Frankie Knuckles). It was going to be hard to go back to playing my other bumble-fuck gigs after having this taste of the high life. There was nothing in the world I enjoyed more than spinning records. They replaced CBGB with a luxury menswear shop, and The Palladium was turned into an NYU dorm. Koko Da Doll, Star of Film on Transgender Sex Workers - New York Times It was his hobby and passion. Paradise Club, The Times Square Edition, 701 7th Ave, New York, NY 10036. Even LL Cool J worked the elevators. But still, it wasnt the ego-stroke of now the world will know my name! It was the fact that it made it real. The list of incredible acts that also got their starts here includes The Cure, Depeche Mode, The Beastie Boys, and Billy Idol. That party, nicknamed the Loft, basically launched global DJ and club culture; and in presenting its details, Lawrence suddenly had a career documenting the founding corner of contemporary dance music. A glimpse through the rare images below will remind you that as with everything in the city, the scene is constantly changing. Part of HuffPost Entertainment. Lawrence dug into the three years between the decades dawn and the oncoming midnight of the crack and Aids epidemics, before Ronald Reagans neoliberal policies and Manhattans first real-estate boom took hold of New Yorks cultural life. A new, more luxurious model began to take over, as club owners began to build smaller places and focus on attracting a high end clientele who were interested in paying for bottle service. Source: Pixabay. Now he is one of the executive producers of The Get Down, Baz Luhrmanns colorful Netflix show that recasts the creation myth of rap and modern DJing as a fairytale musical. Walt Cassidy in his '90s "Club Kid" get-up and now. To paraphrase Peter Venkman no job was too small, no fee was too small. There was always a sense of New York in my imagination, said Lawrence in one of our numerous conversations during his visit. Out of the capes that stood up like tee pees, a waltz with the boys and a Russian song by the production singer proceeded. You were a legend in your own mind. The Lagerfeld Looks That Defined a Career (and Remade Fashion) And while Sacco is hoping to drum up interest in a revamped Bungalow in 2010, it will end this decade as being closed. The lights are shining brightly, and people would be totally uninhibited. Spa also sold 16 different types of bottled water, another of those trends that must have been so original at the time but now seem just plain silly. In New York's nightclub scene of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Alexis Di Biasio stood out in the crowd. Spas business model was predicated on pricey entrance fees, a booming sound system, and a crowd mix that would let you know that you were partying at a nightclub in New York City. The most famous version of Danceteria, one of the most iconic New York night clubs of the '80s, was located at 30 West 21st St. Rather than seeing one performance, one group of attractive people, or one bartender doing flip-tricks from Cocktail, they could see four at once. Fabulous was the word of the era, and it came in all forms. The wiry 49-year-old may have grown up in the London exurb of Winnersh and teaches cultural studies at the University of East London, but theres little question that New Yorks late 20th-century nightlife has served as his muse. Club kids were known for their wild ensembles, which drew inspiration from punk, S&M, and clown styles. Exterior of Lou Walters World Famous Latin Quarter nightclub at 48th & Broadway, New York, NY. It's still called The Palladium, though. The long shuttered 21st Street lounge was named after a long defunct store in Milan and had a mod design, offering both food and dancing to a house music loving crowd. The mythology was that New York was this hellhole of dysfunctionality, crime, murder, and garbage piled on the streets, says Lawrence. In 2014, Mr. Lagerfeld unveiled "Bag Boy Karlito," a limited-edition bag charm made in his image from mink, fox and goat. Understandably, the packed House of Yes crowd an impressive congregation of young and old, black and white, straight and gay went wild. His sets were eight hours and he usually DJed five nights a week. Full of California style decor and Hollywood Glamour this nightclub soon became the NYC playground for the A-List including Kate Moss, Lindsay Lohan, Nicole Richie and more. The Paradise Garage is one of the most famous and influential dance clubs of all time, and was an epicenter for LGBT culture in the late '70s and early '80s, and the home base of legendary DJ Larry Levan. All rights reserved. New York City, 1994. It may be why real-time critical context for club music has always been rare. And no one could be better suited for the elegant glamour than Jackie O herself, who visited the club with both her husbands. All the MCs at the time came through there Run-DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, Ultramagnetic MCs, 3rd Bass, Big Daddy Kane. Something went wrong. Visual artist Walt Cassidy, who partied with the Club Kids, documented the uniquely self-indulgent era of nightlife through provocative images in his book New York: Club Kids. Obsessed with travel? E. Jean Carroll was 'out talking to people' Long before this fraught moment in the media's glare, Carroll was a journalistic luminary, known for her Ask E. Jean advice column, and for being a . I cant overstate the importance of this; there, on a glossy piece of card was my name Mark Ronson printed right under Stretch Armstrong, maybe a few font sizes smaller but I didnt care. I remember the burnt orange ambience of the club lighting, how it was bathed in smoke. But this seal of approval sort of made me downtown famous which was more than enough for me. Though theres rarely a lack of nighttime activity in the city that supposedly never sleeps, on paper it seemed like an especially great match. Golden Years: New York Nightlife In The '50s. Thats how you knew where the party was. This is a list of notable current and former nightclubs in New York City. The venue was the epicenter of the no wave and new wave scenes, and was frequented by Nico, The B-52's, Black Flag, Jean-Michel Basquait, Keith Haring, Madonna, and David Byrne, who immortalized the club in the Talking Heads hit "Life During Wartime." So, while Flashs stock as a local legend never fell off, its been a minute since it paid such high market dividends. OUTgoing: Mapping the Hidden History of New York's Gay Nightlife The years that followed still brought plenty of noteworthy nights and denim-drenched outfits. Soul Kitchen came about cause even though I was playing new music at Nells house and hip-hop I was also playing playing funk, soul and disco, but wanted to to do something where I could just play those records out, exclusively and in their entirety. The fashions were witty, playful, and bold. In the late 1980s, many of New Yorks megaclubs closed down as a result of the economic crash of 1987. Now, a selection of them has been collected in the book, Fabulousity: A Night Youll Never Forget or Remember, published by Wild Life Press. Featuring dance cages and several private rooms dispersed along its distinctive narrow length, The Tunnel was a mecca for club kids of all types who flooded to its specialty rooms designed like Victorian libraries, S&M dungeons, and other whimsical locales, including a separate gay bar in the back of the tunnel. He also credits the citys house music scene for his initial focus on the meaning of the dancefloor. Promoters would encourage that. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts. Another pair of parties that took place during Lawrences week here directly reinforced this lineage. Centro Fly Much like Avenue is going for the gastrolounge ethos, Centro-Fly sought to create a more sophisticated setting for the aging crowd who had grown tired of hard core dance halls like Area and Vinyl. If our memory serves us correctly, they also served a delicious tuna entre all night. Dancing up on a riser or on the stage was for those that felt like letting their inner exhibitionist loose, on display for the entire room to see showing off your best moves. Rubell always made certain that those interesting people always returned for another party, whether that meant building a corral in the middle of the club for equine-enthusiast Dolly Parton, plying Bianca Jagger with a flock of white doves, or giving Warhol a steel barrel full of cash. They were all alphabetically organized with little index cards like youd see in libraries. The venue closed in 1971, and the building on 105 Second Ave. is currently occupied by Apple Bank for Savings. Lotus was meant to be a place for everyone, dancing dining, conversation and wildness, and as the Meatpacking District developed, the space was a raging success. They had the very best DJs (Stretch Armstrong, DJ Jules, DJ Enuff, DJ Hiro, Frankie Inglese) and the most beautiful array people (models, rap stars, ballers, art kids, skaters, drug dealers, etc.). For almost 20 years, those photos sat in Glams apartment in New York. The city had the hottest nights in what was then the global capital of nightlife. The venue's DJs' impact on dance music is still being felt today, but now the actual space on 84 King Street is just a parking facility owned by Verizon. Damn, this really was it! The bar was famous for having 61 flavors of martinis and a delicious cosmopolitan, which seem so horribly lame now but were actually headline grabbing at the time. The venue was . Southpaw was a Park Slope, Brooklyn, venue that hosted a wide range of bands from Cat Power and TV on the Radio to Electric Six and Sharon Jones through much of the 2000s. (Steve Eichner) NEW YORK CITY - New York City after dark in the '90s was an ecstatic fever dream fueled by club kids . Or it could be as playful and eye-catching as Warhols pop art, flipping the script on some iconic image hoping to seize your attention as you walked by the window of a hip Soho boutique. 29 Raw Images Of The 1990s Rave Scene At Its Zenith - All That's But as word was spreading, New York had a difficult period.. Lotus A certain level of foresight was in play when David Rabin, Will Regan, Mark Baker and Jeffrey Jah opened Lotus on the corner of 14th Street and 9th Avenue in what would become the center of nightlife in New York City. To simultaneously participate, observe and process history through all of ones biases is a difficult task. At 254 West 54th Street, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager converted a former opera house into the most notorious nightclub of the disco era. Revisiting the Hedonistic Bliss of New York's Legendary '90s Nightlife Scene. Were seeing that difficult period shifting into something more engaged and hospitable. Below weve excerpted some choice images, words and memories to recapture an essential cultural moment. Sad to say, but it was one of the last true melting pot nightclubs in NYC in terms of music, racial diversity, sexual orientation, where people came from and how much money they had. The Great Nightlife Venues That Came And Went in the Aughts Later, with early Photoshop, Id find an image and my man Richie would work on it on a computer which wed rent by the hour, and then wed take the design to a print shop. Visit NYCgo for official NYC nightlife information, including historic New York bars and lounges, like McSorley's, 21 Club, Pete's Tavern and. Image courtesy John Hemmer Archive. I remember how the Rane crossfader felt under my hand as I dropped Nice & Smooths Old to the New. I remember being thrilled to meet DJ Jules but trying to play it cool. 1890: So-called fairies turn tricks at the Slide (157 Bleecker St.), one of the city's earliest gathering spots for gay men. It was a major turnoff for customers, even if you were friends with the owner. The records that came out of these borderless scenes soon became the soundtrack of the entire city and beyond, with Blondies Rapture, Afrika Bambaataas Planet Rock, the Peech Boys Dont Make Me Wait and Madonnas Holiday effortlessly crossing genres, cliques and, soon, oceans. Studio 54 was the pillar of the New York club scene for many years. Thursdays at The World were a memorable night that will always warm my heart. Michael Jackson, Diana Ross, Bianca Jagger and Brooke Shields and Diane von Furstenberg are only a few of the notable faces that graced the dance floor through the years. (modern). The famous flocked there to rock (Bruce Springsteen famously played there in 1972), work (Debbie Harry waitressed there), hang out (Tom Waits and William Burroughs were regulars), and well, one time Jim Morrison apparently couldnt make it to the restroom, so he urinated in a wine bottle all night and then handed it to his waitress. So I was shocked when I got that call a few days later, asking if I wanted to play the opening slot at their new party the coming Friday. Theyre so emblematic of that time no computers, totally DIY. The visuals of the clubs were extremely enjoyable. Drenched in throbbing neon while whirling away inside the relentless, pulsating music, a simple passing glance and an open mind could lead to the journey of a lifetime. It's comfortable, and you can get a drink and do your partying without leaving the loo. The NYC nights of the 1990s were full of fun. Economics for one but also demographics.
