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. On Now Bar and Lounge. Both were DJ sets by older English men that lasted upwards of six hours. They were also reaffirming a set of values by which the city of their era lived and, at times, still tries to. Wetlands was a socially conscious nightclub that supported environmental activism and hosted early gigs by Phish, Dave Matthews Band, Blues Traveler, Hootie and the Blowfish, Spin Doctors, and Pearl Jam. Part of HuffPost Entertainment. Website: Marquee New York. Schrager has demonstrated this commitment since 1977, when he and Steve Rubell established the famous Studio 54 in New York City. The clubs made sure we got a DJ set AND a live show. Purchase No Sleep at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other fine retailers. 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. At The World we would see the latest house hits performed every week. There was always a sense of New York in my imagination, said Lawrence in one of our numerous conversations during his visit. Popular with women's softball teams, it was the first official. The stage at The Roxy. Koko Da Doll, who was featured in "Kokomo City," a documentary about four Black transgender sex workers that won awards at the Sundance Film Festival this year, was fatally . See more ideas about night club, new york night, copacabana. - 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. But in a way that is because of New Yorks success; because its influence helped grow dance scenes all over the world. Hearst Magazine Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 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. Photography wasn't his profession. Patti Smith, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and dozens of other avant-garde, head-smashing and crowd-punching punk acts made this club -- which closed in the mid-aughts after giving The Strokes one of their biggest boosts. A reaction to the giant, airplane hangar-esque discos that had permeated the city during the 1970s, Nells was a Jazz, Reggae and Hip-Hop dance club with a capacity of just 250. 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. Founded by New York City nightlife tycoon Amy Sacco, Bungalow 8 was the club of the early aughts. There were other ways to have fun and let one's inner child out. It's comfortable, and you can get a drink and do your partying without leaving the loo. 06/27/16. On the eve of a week that would see New York City host a handful of events to celebrate and spotlight the release of Tim Lawrences new book, Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor, 1980-1983 a study of what the author convincingly identifies as the citys cultural renaissance, when hip-hop, new wave and dance music collided in clubs like Mudd and the Paradise Garage one of the books characters was making a rare Brooklyn appearance at a space in Bushwick. Drugs, deals, and the wildest parties you can imagine. The venue was . That was part of the ethos of the day. Dec 31, 2021 - New York City 1980s and 1990s night club underground scene - sound factory / limelight / nell's / tunnel / danceteria / carmelita's / M.K. I saw my window of opportunity, gave Carlos the hard sell and handed him my tape, though I never expected to hear back. Rubell's maxim: "The key to a good party is filling a room with guests more interesting than you -- which meant Rick James, David Bowie, Andy Warhol, and hundreds of people youve never heard of, but who were living very weird lives in the late 1970s. I asked some (famous) friends to write about these iconic pieces of art and the music and nightlife scenes they representincluding Mark Ronson, Moby, Nelson George, Frankie Inglese, Patrick Moxey and Lady Miss Kier of Deee-Lite. Nowadays, the notion of a DJ running the gamut from dub to hip-hop to disco/house to techno to African sounds, playing to a large crowd that takes it all in, is less norm than its own peculiar lane. Search, watch, and cook every single Tasty recipe and video ever - all in one place! To simultaneously participate, observe and process history through all of ones biases is a difficult task. Clowns, burlesque artists, acrobats, punks and strippers ran wild in the club, which was never located in the same place twice, moving from space to space in Manhattan and using any suitably large venue. Only Studio B can fit that bill. The first couple of years we handed them out ourselves. Nells was the epitome of the exclusivity-obsessed 1980s, that not even the rich and famous could get into. The first club I DJed was Mars. The flyers seemed themselves a physical manifestation of the evolution of New Yorks downtown scene: the artwork could look born from a Basquiat 12-inch record sleeve: hand drawn, collagist and gorgeous. Manchester's Haienda - which was founded by Tony Wilson with money made by New Order's record sales - is where baggy was born. However with the advent of the internet, the flyer essentially disappeared overnight, despite it being common at one time for promoters to print thousands for any given event. As told by Steven Joseph Loza, in the book, Tito Puente and the Making of Latin Music, Sammy Davis Jr. and Jackson Pollack could regularly be found on the dance floor, while Marlon Brando could be seen on the bongos. Damn, this really was it! Around the corner, the budding British impresario Reza Blue and Michael Holman, Basquiats bandmate in the no-wave group Gray, began throwing a weekly party at the Second Avenue club Negril that brought together the DJing Bambaataa, his Zulu Nation MCs, breakdancers and the Fun Gallerys graffiti writers. Download the STARZ app to catch up on Power now, and dont miss the Season 3 premiere on Sunday, July 17 at 9pm on STARZ. The 90s were about pleasure, and it was in every corner. 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. 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. 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.. Sweating and pulsing to the beat simultaneously with thousands of other people. Many participants of the Life and Death tour came to that weeks installment of the Loft, at 46, the planets longest-running classic club night. 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. As time went on, I was going out to find new spaces for these parties. One featured DJ Harvey, who spent a few years in New York learning his craft at the feet of Levan. New York City nightlife has always been pivotal within pop culture. 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. We did not want to go out to see something we wanted to be a part of something, said Johnny Dynell. We did the first shows for Rob Base, De La Soulwe brought in the West Coast with N.W.A and Schoolly D came up from Philadelphia. Emotionally, critically, intellectually, its hard to say that New York is the kind of mecca for dance music that it was in the 70s and 80s. Steve Eichner was just a starry-eyed kid with big dreams when he packed up his camera gear in his hometown of Long Beach, Long Island, and set up his first NYC photo studio at 27th St. and 11th . One of the biggest turning points in my life was getting that job. 5. Cree McCree talked with the photographer about his career and a handsome new book collection of his work for PKM. Something went wrong. Im a pragmatist, however, and I armed myself with a strong supply of my own DJ demo tapes, on the off chance I was out and met a club owner who could potentially be a future employer. The whole artistic world seemed to be descending upon downtown New York.. Located on East 14th street, the downtown club founded by Studio 54's Steve Rubell was known as one of New York's largest rock venues and dance clubswith iconic music stars such as Madonna making appearances. By contrast, the same evening marked the end of the 13-year weekly run of DJ Franois Ks Deep Space party at Cielo, in the Meatpacking District, which in 2017 is moving to Output, a Berlin-style club in Williamsburg. During those eight years, Gregoire Alessandrini was able to witness a unique atmosphere, which he share now with us: "The city had obviously tremendously changed since the 70's and 80's but you just had to walk around the corner, enter any downtown dive bar to find the signs and remains of this legendary NY. We hold major institutions accountable and expose wrongdoing. Centro Fly eventually shut down and was replaced by the unfortunate Duvet, which itself was just ordered closed. So it makes her happy to look at it, and thats the sweet truth. This is a good thing. Yet to a person every one Id speak to would say that far from uninhabitable, theyd never want to leave it. 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. Studio 54 is arguably the most famous nightclub in history, and the most influential club in the disco movement of the late '70s. Pictured: Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz at the legendary nightclub. Strippers were dispatched throughout the club to help encourage some serious debauchery. Memories. Spanning the late 1980s through the late 1990s, when nightlife buzz travelled via flyers and word of mouth, No Sleep features a collection of artwork from the personal archives of DJs, promoters, club kids, nightlife impresarios, and the artists themselves. Were seeing that difficult period shifting into something more engaged and hospitable. 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. Wiggle Room, East Village. He was moving to Miami Beach, Fla., and he thought the humid weather would damage the photos. Out of the capes that stood up like tee pees, a waltz with the boys and a Russian song by the production singer proceeded. .css-o05pt{display:block;font-family:Didot,Didot-fallback,Georgia,Times,serif;font-weight:normal;letter-spacing:0rem;margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;text-shadow:0 0 0 #000,0 0 0.01em transparent;}@media (any-hover: hover){.css-o05pt:hover{color:link-hover;}}@media(max-width: 48rem){.css-o05pt{font-size:1.18581rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.25rem;margin-top:0.625rem;}}@media(min-width: 40.625rem){.css-o05pt{line-height:1.2;}}@media(min-width: 48rem){.css-o05pt{font-size:1.23488rem;line-height:1.2;margin-bottom:0.5rem;margin-top:0rem;}}@media(min-width: 64rem){.css-o05pt{font-size:1.39461rem;line-height:1.2;margin-top:0.9375rem;}}The Best Restaurants for Brunch in NYC, The Best Last-Minute Weekend Getaways from NYC, 100+ Things to See and Do in New York City, 15 New York City Pools To Lounge By This Summer, Eat Chic: The 10 Best Manhattan Speakeasies, The Best Staycation Hotels in New York City. A 2015 survey of former nightclubs in the city identified 10 most historic ones, starting with the Cotton Club, . 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.). One entered, and there was a hierarchy of where one sat. As a kid who loved hip-hop and a big all around music fan, there was no barrier to meet these people because at night it was quite democratic everyone got to meet everyone. 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. But CBGBs was not for the faint of heart, fights and substance-fueled violence were a regular occurrence, including Dee-Dee Ramone who reportedly had frequent jealous battles with his groupie girlfriend (picture broken beer bottle threats and smashed windshields). Id be on the streets for hours talking to people can I throw a party here? Can I load in sound equipment? Can I do this, can I do that? We faced a lot of challenges. 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. All rights reserved. See the original post on Slate with more photos. I remember the burnt orange ambience of the club lighting, how it was bathed in smoke. This will help to share the story with others. 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. Pictured: Debbie Harry on the stage before a performance. His sets were eight hours and he usually DJed five nights a week. Oops. 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. Through the 90s, they became both increasingly prevalent and more sophisticated as printing technology evolved. Promoters would encourage that. With places like these, is it any wonder the city never sleeps? And although set in the '90s, the decade saw the 2003 release of Macaulay Culkin's "Party . 1890: So-called fairies turn tricks at the Slide (157 Bleecker St.), one of the city's earliest gathering spots for gay men. I would drive Dmitry to work and usually dance all night. 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). Buried beneath them are clubs and parties that spoke for a wilder, more reckless and innovative city than the one we live in now. Read about Eichner's memories in his own words and see his picks of his most joyful photos from the 90s nightlife in NYC: Photographing partiers at play was delightful for me and made entertaining pictures. The DJ would be in command, and when the music reached a crescendo, the entire room seemed to climax together in unison. One of the biggest was at this olive oil warehouse in Tribeca with no working elevator. #TheLIST: New York's Most Historic Night Clubs, Your Privacy Choices: Opt Out of Sale/Targeted Ads. Then the girls returned to their capes to finish the number. Some so hilarious and experimental, I would laugh out loud while pressing the shutter button. He didn't take studio photography or anything like that.. In the city that loves to boast about how little it sleeps, the nightclub has been the center of the universe since Jazz Age hipsters started desperately flocking to the Cotton Club in the 1920s. Photo courtesy of Wiggle Room. You were a legend in your own mind. Ernie Glam (his club name) met Di Biasio in the late 1980s at a party, and as they struck up a friendship, he learned more about Di Biasios life. 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. Address: 289 10th Avenue, New York, NY 10001. Yet as Lawrence writes, the influence of Levan and his club, the Paradise Garage, was already being felt at art-punk discotheques like the Mudd Club and Danceteria, where DJs such as Johnny Dynell and Mark Kamins were creating a new mix for a new, mixed audience. As you can see, the Fillmore's history is commemorated with a mosaic on a traffic light pole on the corner. That melting pot of madness is the stuff legends are made of. In 1995, Di Biasio gave Glam four boxes of his photos to store in his closet. But with all the flurry of openings in the area over the past 10 years, Lotus became an afterthought to its original patrons, and was unable to attract a new crowd. Thursdays at The World were a memorable night that will always warm my heart. Discover unique things to do, places to eat, and sights to see in the best destinations around the world with Bring Me! (Steve Eichner) NEW YORK CITY - New York City after dark in the '90s was an ecstatic fever dream fueled by club kids . By choosing I Accept, you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. Regardless, I ended up giving an employee from Mars a cassette which had hip-hop on one side and house music on the other, and somehow she gave it to the club director Yuki Watanabe who actually called me and gave me my first job as a DJ in the basement. They replaced CBGB with a luxury menswear shop, and The Palladium was turned into an NYU dorm. The space pioneered a lot of lighting and projection effects, and hosted early electronic music performances by Terry Riley and Morton Subotnick. Sacco and Bungalow rode a Sex and the City wave and the space quickly became the hot spot of the beginning of the decade. That is such a wonderful feeling. Reporting on what you care about. Wed cut em with those Slingline papercutters and hand em out at Mars and other spots. Also, he was always taking photos. And where Life and Death-era musical programming actively attempted to cut across genres and audiences, todays club nights are more tailored to individual sounds, textures and BPMs. My favorite was the shampoo room at Limelight. It feels like times have changed. Let's revisit the blissfulness of New York 90's club scene. The visuals of the clubs were extremely enjoyable. Bond's Casino was a nightclub and venue in Times Square that famously hosted a residency of 17 concerts by The Clash in 1981 that has been extensively bootlegged over the years. We had to bring 20,000 pounds of sound equipment up five flights of stairs to throw the party and then bring it down the next day. The fashions were witty, playful, and bold. Since opening in May, Wiggle Room is one our favorite nightclubs in terms of aesthetics, cocktails, and clientele. / copacabana. On my nights off, I went to parties like Giant Step & Soul Kitchen. 1. Source: Pixabay. Crossing genres: a dancer at the Mudd Club in 1979. he timing and location of the nights entertainment . Spa After his genuinely outstanding Life closed down, Uncle Steve Lewis brought much of his gang to Spa, a raucous water themed dance club near Union Square. October 20, 2020. At 254 West 54th Street, Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager converted a former opera house into the most notorious nightclub of the disco era. newsletter, The Best Dishes Eater Editors Ate This Week, This Manhattan Bodega Is Selling Food Under 24 Different Names on Delivery Apps, A Rooftop Bar With Indonesian-Style Chicken Wings and Jelly Shots Joins the Skyline And More Openings, NY Icon Sammys Roumanian Plots Its Big Return to Manhattan, Taqueria Ramrez Is Taking Over a New Kitchen to Make Burgers. The legal drinking age was 18, the bars stayed open until four in the morning, and the Biltmore Hotel advertised special student rates for Seven Sisters and Ivy Leaguers. It was on the rooftop of Cuando which was a school on 2nd Ave and Houston Street. Rock stars and artists treated Maxs like their own personal living room. It's dubbed the "wickedest place in New York" by local press. 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 imagine its not only for the good looking design, but more importantly for the fact that my mother knew how happy I was to be on the wheels in that club; how proud I was to have my name on that invite, and what a big part of my life that was. 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. 8. I was a waitress in the day or worked in the clubs as a bathroom attendant or coat checker. In time, I became a partner in Milky Way. A new book looks back at the iconic 1990s nightclub scene when sex, drugs, and dance music created the perfect cocktail for iconic parties that catered to revelers every imaginable whim. 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. Also, he was always taking photos. And I remember going downstairs and hearing Stretch do a live blend of R. Kelly Your Bodys Callin over the instrumental of Jerus Come Clean that blew my mind and had the main dance floor in a sweaty rhapsody. It's still called The Palladium, though. But as word was spreading, New York had a difficult period.. The Limelight was a nightclub that was an epicenter for "club kid" culture in the '90s, and a rock venue that hosted a lot of industrial and post-punk bands like Foetus, Gang of Four, Cop Shoot Cop, and New Model Army. Whether its the clubs or the thriving warehouse scene, youth and internationalism rules Brooklyn nightlife, alongside layers of social privilege. The store integrated a lot of the site's original graffiti and posters, so it hasn't completely wiped out the space's history. New York club music had gravitas, with everyone from Bowie and the Clash to New Order and Herbie Hancock pulled into its orbit. 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. Each night was an out-and-out Bacchanal, with Cab Calloway, Ellington, Louis Armstrong and others soundtracking the vice emporium with songs like "Reefer Blues," "Kicking the Gong Around" (20's slang for using opium), and "Kokey Joe.. With Baker and Jah no longer in the picture, the space was taken over in 2008 by Eugene Remm and Mark Birnbaum, who were just wee promoters when the space opened. The last time we were there, we shared a table with a guy spending his last night on the town before heading to prison for a year. I was lucky to see Paris Grey sing Big Fun, Good Life with Inner City (one of the first house hits) as well as Bas Noir, Jomanda, A Guy Called Gerald, Liz Torrez, Loleatta Holloway, Two Tons of Fun, and even XLR doing Work It to the Bone.. Yet, what changes when you leave a longtime residence? 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. It may be why real-time critical context for club music has always been rare. Thats how we made sure that the people we wanted to be there were there, and the people we didnt want to be there wouldnt be. B. To paraphrase Peter Venkman no job was too small, no fee was too small. The Ritz on 125 East 11th St. was the premier rock club in New York in the '80s, and it hosted gigs by pretty much every hot act from the era, from Sonic Youth and Public Enemy to early shows by Soundgarden, Ministry, and Guns N' Roses. Those flyers were so much more than just paper and cardboard. Fabulous was the word of the era, and it came in all forms. Steve Eichner was the photo king of NYC mega-clubs. April 21, 2023. He basically just went out to clubs or whatever types of events we were going to and took photos. Better yet, you could dance to that transformation. However, JFK reportedly preferred the quieter Champagne Room, a private dining area in the back of the club. He was seated in a seminar room at New York Universityon a drizzly Saturday afternoon, decked out in a leopard-print suit and lightly tinted shades, imparting wisdom to a gathering of grad students, zine writers and ageing bohemians treading memory lane. Sacco poached most of her high end crowd when she opened Bungalow a few years later, but Lot 61 had a pretty good run, and like Bungalow, the space managed to carry on for several years after it had fallen out of favor with the scene. May 27, 2020. During the 1990s, photographer Steve Eichner documented the rowdy, over-the-top debauchery that was New York City's club scene and nightlife. 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. In the late 1980s, many of New Yorks megaclubs closed down as a result of the economic crash of 1987. From Copacabana to Studio 54 here's a look at the clubs that set the standard for the New York social scene. To learn more or opt-out, read our Cookie Policy. 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 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. And audiences that were hard to pinpoint too more Caucasian and younger than at Flash, but hardly monochromatic, ready for a long haul, and, to echo Dynells self-assessment, determined to be active participants rather than tourists. Yet what Life and Death on the New York Dance Floor makes acutely obvious, as both volume and prism, is not just the cultural value of the citys party scene, but how it also serves as a moral compass and how it still can. Activism & Politics Bars & Nightlife Staten Island 1970s 1980s Lesbian Bars, Clubs & Restaurants. We would put a telephone number on a flyer, and we have an answering machine and on the day before the party we would put the address on the outgoing message. Often homemade or assembled from thrift-store items, the outfits were unique and bold expressions of identity. Even the co-ed bathroom at Tunnel was a place for merrymaking. 2023 BuzzFeed, Inc. All rights reserved. Golden Years: New York Nightlife In The '50s. The venue shut down in 2012 and has since been turned into a NY Kids Club. There was still a wild abandon in New York. For almost 20 years, those photos sat in Glams apartment in New York. This commercial building was home to the Beach Haven, Staten Island's sole lesbian bar in the 1970s and early 1980s. 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!
