Nightlife venues are claiming the city’s fringes, as their predecessors are priced out of what were once industrial deserts. The clubs have moved deeper into the borough: Palisades, on the perimeter of Bed-Stuy or the Bossa Nova Civic Club, which pumps house and techno from its smoky tropical recesses beneath a subway overpass in Bushwick. When the demographics of the communities change, then the situation often changes.” “There are two factors there: you’re either not bothering anybody, or you’re dealing with people with more of a distaste for the authorities than they have for you. “When you’re in a neighbourhood with a lot of low-income people or you’re in a place where there aren’t any neighbours, you don’t generate 301 calls,” he says.
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Did you ever think you were going to be partying in Ridgewood, Queens? DJ JubileeĪll those people make it hard to run a decent club. Unfortunately, he says, the same thing is happening to Brooklyn that happened to Manhattan. But New York’s penchant for dance music remains: it long ago travelled across the Brooklyn bridge, where Todd Patrick, known as Todd P, the previous owner of 285 Kent and current manager of Trans-Pecos, has been at the forefront of the club scene since 2001. What was once a showcase for experimental music has upscaled – and whitened. Manhattan’s after-hours scene, formerly celebrated for its inclusion of socially marginalised or disenfranchised people – including gay, Latino and black communities – has transformed. They want to live in a cool neighbourhood that the club may have pioneered, but don’t want the club there any more.”
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People start moving in, but don’t want the noise and traffic that comes with having a nightclub nearby, making it extremely difficult for clubs to operate, with constant noise complaints and community board agendas. “Club owners look for spots that aren’t residential to avoid problems – but if the club becomes popular, so does the neighbourhood, it seems. “The Mudd Club and Area were in neighbourhoods that weren’t thought of as cool or OK to move to,” says Strauss.
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Area, founded in an empty commercial zone in TriBeCa, made way for condominiums. The real estate boom claimed the Paradise Garage: originally founded in an uninhabited area, it soon found itself next to a new luxury pre-development neighborhood organisations complained about the club’s proximity, and the landlord refused to renew the lease. The ascent of New York’s financial sector and dot-com “Silicon Alley” companies is well-documented. The latest club to throw up its hands is Cameo Gallery: it will shut its doors on 21 November.īut if those nightclubs were partially responsible for making Manhattan and then Williamsburg hip enough to “regenerate” in the first place, it raises the question: are nightclubs responsible for their own gentrification? Across the street, Domino Factory is being turned into a mixed-use development. Three major clubs in Williamsburg – 285 Kent, Glasslands and Death by Audio, known for showcasing local up-and-comers and international talent alike, including Sophie, Daniel Avery, Pinch, Fort Romeau, DJ Spinn and XXYYXX – closed last year, “regenerated” into hip waterfront commercial property now occupied by Vice magazine. Photograph: Keith Butler/Rex ShutterstockĮxcept now Brooklyn, too, is becoming a graveyard of choked-out music venues. Seems like now everything is here in Brooklyn.” “But real estate went up and the clientele changed. “The whole scene was so vibrant with creativity,” Strauss remembers.
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A rapid succession of Manhattan venue closures throughout the late 1980s and early 1990s claimed Area, the Limelight, the Underground and many others. Hip-hop Sundays at the Tunnel saw Mary J Blige, Jay Z and Puffy perform, while record executives scouted for fresh faces. Area would completely reinvent its interior every six weeks to a new theme – from Alphabet Soup (complete with staff wading into pools of murky red broth among oversized peas and carrots) to Suburbia (100 boxes of cereal, a washer and dryer, plastic flamingos and Astroturf). At the Paradise Garage, Larry Levan pioneered the eponymous garage genre and changed the trajectory of modern dance music. If Manhattan in the late 1970s and mid-1980s is best remembered for urban decay, its club nights were equally legendary. Andy Warhol and Keith Haring at the Tunnel’s grand opening Celebration in 1986.