NYC unemployment hits 10.3% and getting worse

But a flesh wound

it's OK. only the poor get fired in manhattan because we're different. and the poor weren't going to be buying any coops.

>it's OK. only the poor get fired in manhattan because we're different. and the poor weren't going to be buying any coops.<

you couldn't be more right about the "poor" getting fired. That is always the case throughout history. I would think a company would want to get rid of the power salaries. That is never, ever the case. The Director stays but the Jr.Analyst goes.

Most interesting comment “Since the city’s unemployment rate peaked more than a
year after the end of the last two recessions, we can expect the
rate to trend upward into 2010,”

We lag the rest of the country so look for things to continue to get worse before they get better here.

steveF, let's look at that,shall we?

the MDs, equity partners, CEOs, have they already, for the most part, bought their homes? who buys your studios, business potentates?

substance-abuse counselors, divorce attorneys and psychoanalysts will save the Manhattan real estate market.

Poor or unskilled?

Interesting that none will acknowledge the one true constant of NYC is change. It's changing folks...to what I'm not sure. During my adulthood this was the place to be if you were bright and motivated because this is where the money was. In the 1960s and 70s you might not say that. If you were a counter culture person back in the day you made a bee line to the city. I'm old enough to remember the 'white flight' as droves of my folks friends split the city for the wide open spaces of suburbia. Who of you could forget going to Madison Square Garden in the late 70s? Talk about creep town. How about the 42nd street mad dash to Port Authority while your senses were assulted with drugs, vagrants, pornography and, CRIME. Speaking of crime...anyone remember 'crossing the street'? You see some persons of questionable character walking toward you so you cross the street in the middle to see what happens...anyone remember? So...mabe NYC is changing again to some new thing. Maybe every super bright college grad will pack their bags and head for some other town. Maybe NYC becomes a place of economic stagnation and the only folks that stay are the city addicts or those with businesses right here. Technology not only allows people to work off site...in some cases they can be anywhere in the world. A lot of young adults would come not just for the work but, for the mating. The advent of social networking and the electronic media would even allow the crew of Capt. Jack to operate their social lives from their bedroom in their parents house in Oysterbay L.I..

The only constant is change.

It's disturbing that you see a dichotomy between "bright and motivated" on one hand, and "counter culture person" on the other. Does "bright and motivated" mean "natural born follower"?

Counter-culture = musicians, artists, beatniks, hippies, bohemians. Not exactly the types that pay the majority of municipal taxes.

= ad industry, art industry, publishing industry, fashion industry, music industry, entertainment industry, etc. ... bright, motivated.

bright and motivated people don't like the New York Dolls.

http://www.nydolls.org/band.php

"This is what you need to know — the New York Dolls were the first and the best, and that hasn’t changed.

When the Dolls whipped their first long-player on an unsuspecting world in 1973, they were positively terrifying. Next to the Dolls, the other so-called glam boys who clogged the pages of Creem magazine looked like spoiled children who had just toodled home from ballet class.

With the Dolls, there was something gone horribly wrong. It was as if they were daring you to call them names and start a fight. They weren’t prep-school dweebs dabbling in drag for the springtime variety show — in the bucket-of-blood rock’n’roll clubs of New York City, if you somehow felt that you had to wear bedroom pumps and a halter top to get your message across, you had better be the best goddamn rock’n’roll band in the world, or get ready to die."

...

"Like the Rolling Stones, The Dolls may have begun by covering Bo Diddley, but The Dolls had outer-borough panache and delivered their licks with an irreverence that mutated New York City’s perverse sense of humor with the rebellion-for-rebellion’s sake of Marlon Brando, twisting a deadly double-helix of razz and snarl that changed rock’n’roll forever.

If there is such a thing as the New York Sound, the New York Dolls are it."

Counter culture also implies the inability to pay enormous rents without a giant time/work sacrifice which makes them bright/motivated workers of the distintly non-bohemian type.

Lighten up alan and put down the microscope.

deaths almost all drug or alcohol related. David Johanson rocks!
but in real life they were losers.

I myself have the heart of a bohemian. It's my stomach that demands good food and my aggressive nature that demands a competitive business. I also materialistly dream of living in a large Manhattan space with all the trimmings...lexus in the garage downstairs, daughter in private school, beach house on FI, winters in St. Barts...do I need to continue? There is a little hippie in me but, it takes a back seat to my education, aspiration($), and desire for finanacial security. It's the last factor that has been my biggest motivater. I they had stuck a silver spoon in my mouth I'd be living in a commune in Costa Rica (Pachumama) prefecting my surfing. Alas, no spoon so it's all up to me and as it turns out I like money and I fear the lack of it.

Like the music, don't much like the scene. As you get older you move towards Jazz anyway.

well put, falco. but wouldn't it be nice if it didn't TAKE so much money and time for so many of those things? not that hard work should be avoided, but we keep spiraling down into this cycle of fewer and fewer "types" of people being able to really afford much of anything. back in the day many people did work less for the same or close to the same result.

and can the winters in St. Barts and the beach house in florida be a substitute for leisure on a more regular basis? i can remember when it all started to change so so vividly. 1998. we'd been renting a car almost every weekend so we decided to lease one that year. 3 years later, at the end of the lease term, we returned it with less than 7000 miles on it (actually i think it was around 5000). should have paid off the residual and sold it, but we didn't have the time nor inclination to deal with it. we were just appalled at what a bad decision and waste of money that had been.

AR, a reference to the New York Dolls...well buster my poindexter!
You little hippster...
you are correct...they were the best!

i think some change is good, falco. your stomach likes good food, but how many $50 entrees does it need each year? maybe we don't want the '70s to return, but i think our youth would be a bit improved with a smidgen of rebellion and counterculture. i wouldn't have missed CBGB's for anything, even if i had to go to the middle of the street, as you say, a couple of times.

buster my pointdexter. hilarious.

P.S. Saw them preform live in all their make-up dress wearing glory...ahhhhh the days of little falco slinking around the EV, tossed from CBGBs only to end up at Great Gildersleves listening to the A's (Secret Agent Man) raping to a bald fat girl with 67 face piercings and combat boots.
Alcohol and youth will make you brave and stupid...is their a better combination for fun and adventure?

It's weird how those clubs overlapped and yet didn't. I went to Max's, TR3, Hurrah a lot, but CBs virtually never. And the Great Gildersleeve was for Jersey boys, as far as I could tell. Go figure.

I used to go to parties ... now I'm still the same.

i went to a bunch of them. we used to get free passes. sometimes a bunch of us would go to limelight just to collect bad pickup lines from the B&Ters. never did Great Gildersleeve.

someone recently mentioned what a fire hazard Danceteria must of been. never crossed my mind as i imbibed on the roof. SOB's was actually my favorite.

I remember Max's Kansas City. I remember standing at the door and the bouncer looking at my fake ID and then at me and saying, "I can't let you in Mr. Kwong but, for a 87yr. old you ROOK GREAT".

Not "the roof" ... "Wuthering Heights" ... it was the bestest, especially the way they floodlit the water tanks of the nearby buildings. The whole thing, really. [And never say "4th Floor"; it was "Congo Bill"

> you couldn't be more right about the "poor" getting fired.

Wait, let me get this straight... is SteveF so removed from reality that he's resorted to, uh, jokes as his "sources"?

well, when i guess that facts prove you wrong....

was was that again about "leaving graciously"?

"I can't let you in Mr. Kwong but, for a 87yr. old you ROOK GREAT" ... and the best part is you were probably actually a black girl at that time, because NYS IDs had no photos!!!

Danceteria..., that escaped my mind, what was that 22nd street? I remember that fire trap from from many an evening. File that place under 'more places little falco did not get laid'. now the Slime Light was another story...that place had a high yield. The king of Clubs emerged slightly later...The Paladium and, that was a monster! Best dance club ever, highest little falco yield...only fond memories and incurable viruses.

Can anyone produce a chart that shows RE prices in NYC going up at the same time unemployment is going up?

Sound Factory. Then sound factory club, down the block from limelight.

Club USA! Bedrocks!

The place to see the Dolls, not to mention Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Television, Blondie and Mink DeVille among others was Mercer Arts Center in the Broadway Central Hotel, a drug and dereilct cathedral that evantually literally collasped. After the "glitter rock" movement started its metamorphasis into punk, Hilly Kristrol figured out his "Country, Blue Grass, Blues" club on the Bowery could make more money booking punk acts and the rest as they say is history. Hilly previously had a place on West 13th (accross from my best friend's house) that catered to bikers and was forced to closed due pressure from the "changing neighborhood." Should have seen the writing on the wall then, gentrification was sending the Village to hell even in the 70s.

go liz--member white st and west b'way?

falco: the heart of a true bohemian? more likely the heart of a true sellout.

The main Danceteria was 21st, between 5th and 6th. It was the sole occupant of a 12-story building, and operated on the bottom 3 floors, plus eventually Congo Bill and Wuthering Heights, plus they once had some kind of art installation on the 12th floor, the "Feast of San DeNiro" in the alley just west of the building, plus Ross, one of the operators of the two working elevators would rig up a little boombox so he'd have another soundtrack going, in addition to the separate music on each of the aforementioned floors. It was the door of the non-working service elevator, though, that caved in, taking the life of the kid leaning on it. That helped bring the club's death, too -- it survived in peaceful co-existence with Area, the best NY club ever IMO, and one I was once accused of being "pretty much a fixture" in ... Palladium killed Area in very short time, although I never cared for it, not even the Mike Todd room.

There was another Manhattan Danceteria some years after, but I don't think it ever went anywhere, and I never went. But most of all there was a Danceteria that preceded the 21st St. one, on W. 37th or W. 39th or so. They went on for months and months, with prominent ads in the Voice detailing a complicated schedule of entry fees (as if anyone paid), including afterhours. Lo and behold, it turned out that they NEVER EVER had a liquor license. Oops!

How could I forget, I smashed my finger in a taxi door on the way home, ended up in St Vincents and had a very tough time explaining the whole thing to my mother.

i didn't start my NYC trawling until 1981. sounds like i missed a bunch.

it's just so weird to walk by the NYU Palladium building. i can vividly recall what that corner looked like at 2:00 a.m. on a saturday night in the early '80s.

"white st and west b'way" ... TR3, Mudd, Baby Doll Lounge?

i recall women with little on dancing in elevated cages in the Mike Todd room. Danceteria was the best.

Baby Doll Longue, was that a live music venue? still around in the early '80s? i think i might have seen the dead milkmen there if so.

Not sure, but the elevated cages were probably Area, or if they were suspended from high in the air, Limelight.

Baby Doll was an actual titty-bar that AFAIK never had live music or general-population dancing. I'm not sure whether or not it was the subject of the infamous tabloid headline "Headless Body in Topless Bar".

sound factory bar (not club) was down the block from limelight then became cheetah...
but sound factory sure does bring memories - that is, if my brain cells are still around...

no, ah, it wasn't a regular occurrence, it was some special party that the cages were installed for. i remember it because it was so unusual.

wasn't baby doll then. i do recall area, now that you mention it.

That Sound Factory Bar had been Private Eyes (lame) for quite awhile before that.

Sound Factory was W 27th, in the space that was later to be Twilo. Sound Factory (club) moved to W 47th or so. Both of those newer ones were the "drug supermarkets" that attracted so much attention under Giuliani. Maybe I'm naive, but the last incarnation of Limelight never seemed to me to have that much drug activity, but they of course were villainized the most ... proximity to snooty loft-dwellers.

Which is the White/WBway place you two referenced?

mudd--i can only remember the address for the cab home! ever go to the nursery after hours?--if i got home on the early side had to wait in central park til my dad went to work at 6am--

and ar the palladium was a concert hall---academy of music

saw way too many shows there

amazing i survived--some didnt......i am surviving..right?

It's coming back now. So many clubs, such impaired memory.

Pyramid Club, King Tut's, Aztec Lounge. And all those bars in alphabet city on the side streets with names like Joe's.

> sound factory bar (not club) was down the block from limelight then became cheetah...

right, i messed that up. bar, not club.

i saw costello at the palladium. but it did time also as a dance club, unless i've totally lost my mind. which is within the realm of possibility.

Holiday Cocktail Lounge, Blanche's, Park Inn, Blue & Gold. And (somewhat different scene) all those bars that were universally known by names other than their real ones. Like The Frank Sinatra Bar (Chiaromare, I think).

Falco, you threadjacked this topic.

Yes, AR, it was a club after it was a concert hall (where I saw the Clash) by the same name. For awhile before being used as a club, it showed movies (not sure under which name). Did it have rock concerts under the Academy of Music name, its original when built as (I think) as an opera house or similar. Something legitimate, anyway.

i saw costello there in 1989, i believe, after it had become a club. seating was on the floor.

here's one--zappa's annual halloween show at avery fisher hall

ny was bankrupt in the 70's but it had so much more soul than the disney world of commerce and wealth it's become

there were people with soul before, and there are people with soul now.
That a lot of tourists are now visiting (some for decades) doesn't change that fact.

I don't remember anyone saying "this is great" when talking about NYC falling into the abyss. Everybody complained about it.

Now, it seems like its mostly tourists bemoaning the thing everbody was scared of.

> and ar the palladium was a concert hall---academy of music
> saw way too many shows there

They had everything. Black Sabbath played, and then they'd have club MTV night. It was pretty ghetto by the end.

today's youth are drinking very overpriced appletinis while they "slum" on the LES.

The Acadmedy of Music was a movie theater in the 50-60s and a vaudville hall prior to that. Some people confuse it with the location of the original Metropolitan Opera which is where Luchows Restaurant stood when I was a kid (forget what's there now PC Richards?). The Academy was one of those old school movies with a Saturday afternoon kids program (50 cents) with a couple of cartoons, a Batman serial and a kids movie. You had to sit in the kids section but at least the matron was less terrifying than the one at the Loew's Sheridan (now St Vincents garage, soon to be the new hospital) whose previous job was no doubt as a guard at a Nazi or Siberian labor camp. It was always a treat to go see movies on the East Side and not have to deal with her, even East Side kids were easier to take.

I also worked at the Baby Doll Lounge for a (very) short period. I was a bartender costumed in a respectable leotard but some of the guys from my neighborhood stopped in (I suspect someone snitched on me) and let me know that if I didn't quit immediately, my father was going to know I was working in a topless bar. Even though I was 18 and NOT topless, that prospect was not a good one so adios to my budding career in the adult entertainment business. Btw, the BDL was a topless bar but it, along with Billy's Topless late of 6th Avenue and 19th street, were hardly the "gentleman's clubs" of today. Think of them more as "Cheers with Bare Boobs", a signficantly greater percentage of which were not surgically enhanced that you ever find in a topless bar today.

Progression was Academy of Music (movie) 1960s to Academy of Music (concert)1970s to Palladium (club) 1980s to Palladium (dorm) 2990s. Dates are approximate

Oh Em Gee! That matron was the same one (armed with a bazooka-like flashlight) who used to terrorize the people at Loews 83rd -- even the ones smoking what I still to this day refer to as "movie theater pot". She was frightening, and I'm sure her career ended early when she was put on international trial.

Yeah, today's "Gentleman's Clubs" are truly appalling ... "clean pimple" as one person put it. Dirty should be dirty, or funny, or friendly; not fancy, not schmancy, and definitely not sexy. Ewwww.

No, they definitely operated as Palladium when Ron Delsener promoted concerts there (late 1970s to early 80s), and before Rudolf and others renovated it into a club in the mid-1980s.

This is all of us: http://tinyurl.com/kpassw

Heck the movie matron would bring her full wrath at you for smoking Marlboros let alone even the weakest variant of canibis.

the city is simply not the same since they got rid of exterminator chili and with it the elvis booth.

i hope my kid manages to raise some hell.

"No, they definitely operated as Palladium when Ron Delsener promoted concerts there (late 1970s to early 80s), and before Rudolf and others renovated it into a club in the mid-1980s"

When it was a club, it also did concerts. I remember that well. black sabbath definitely played and then it was guido time later in the week.

You may be right 10022, it could have offically called the Palladium when Delsener did concerts. We always called it the "Academy of Music" I guess in the same vein as my parents were likely to say "Idelwild" or refer to the "BMT, IND or IRT" ( the latter a habit I unfortunately picked up to the neverending quizical looks of those younger and/ non-NYC natives).

Besides, groups like Black Sabbath were for kids from uptown or the 'burbs. Downtown we dressed up, glitter to disco...so I guess you could say we were "guido".

What does this have to do with the unemployment rate?

Just curious.

I recently referred to the BMT, and my aunt one-upped me by saying "or you can take the Independent line".

Who knew -- the theater/club in question was built by Fox, the picture company: http://cinematreasures.org/theater/1301/

Well Steve, some of us wouldn't be here revisiting the glorious past of NYC before it became Disney on the Hudson if we had a f*&S%king job! Get the connection now,,,,,,

Steve, put the blame on falco, who threadjacked this. I'm just an innocent bystander.

Alan...Baby Doll...one of my favs!!!
Church and White....The only equal opportunity titty bar in NYC ever. Didn't need tittys to dance there!!!
Scene from Mighty Aphrodity shot there.

miss that place.

"You may be right 10022, it could have offically called the Palladium when Delsener did concerts. We always called it the "Academy of Music" I guess in the same vein as my parents were likely to say "Idelwild" or refer to the "BMT, IND or IRT" ( the latter a habit I unfortunately picked up to the neverending quizical looks of those younger and/ non-NYC natives)."

I think that was it. Because I don't even remember academy of music. Maybe it was a sub-tagline, like a name for the series.

But the concert listings for sure said "Black Sabbath @ Palladium"

"Besides, groups like Black Sabbath were for kids from uptown or the 'burbs. Downtown we dressed up, glitter to disco...so I guess you could say we were "guido". "

If you don't think the kids from uptown and the burbs weren't right there at the clubs with you...

Guido is what you call Italian cheeseballs. And, like any decent club, is what they eventually turned into as they passed their primes. Palladium went mostly latin cheeseball.

nyc10022, you're sufficiently younger that you would have only known it as a club space (that hosted concerts) -- the theater seats had been removed completely from the orchestra level, giant video monitors flanked the right and left sides, and towards the back was what had been the balcony, but was turned into carpeted chairless seating/lounging/vomiting. Good thing smoking was legal, to hide the aroma. And then the Mike Todd room, behind/above the balcony-type area. Does that sound about right?

Italian cheeseballs are called "cugines" (not sure of the spelling)

licnyc,
'falco: the heart of a true bohemian? more likely the heart of a true sellout.'

I'm not sure how becoming a licenced professional with more years of graduate schooling than toes on my feet is a sell out but, you thoughts are your own.

Wait till there's a family depending on you and get back to me.

Thredjacked!!!
More like a trip down memory lane with a few of my closest RE friends...including you and Steve.
What does this have to do with unemployment you ask?
Memory of a time before we cared...
Back in the day when you were...................

Old enough to know better...too young to care.
The Halcyon days...before AIDS made Herpies look like your best friend from Junior High.

"nyc10022, you're sufficiently younger that you would have only known it as a club space (that hosted concerts) -- the theater seats had been removed completely from the orchestra level, giant video monitors flanked the right and left sides, and towards the back was what had been the balcony, but was turned into carpeted chairless seating/lounging/vomiting. Good thing smoking was legal, to hide the aroma. And then the Mike Todd room, behind/above the balcony-type area. Does that sound about right?"

Yes, club mtv, baby!

"bright and motivated people don't like the New York Dolls."

In my prior life in the music business (sound engineer/producer) that absolute worst ever band to open for was the NY Dolls because David Johansen was the biggest asshole I ever met in my life and did everything possible to make life unbearable for any "lesser" acts appearing the same nite (like at CBGB where everyone shared the same dressing room even if it was like U2 and some 14 year old girl band from Queens, throwing everyone else out of the dressing room and making them get ready outside in their van or in the bathrooms with the customers, etc.).

I played CBGB many times. What dressing room?

All the acts at CBs were pretty lesser (at least at the time they played).

"There was another Manhattan Danceteria some years after, but I don't think it ever went anywhere, and I never went."

I think that's because Rudolph had moved on to "Mars" and wasn't associated with it any longer, but I'm not sure.

> Italian cheeseballs are called "cugines" (not sure of the spelling)

Maybe to the doo-wopers.

In the 80s/90s, in the Italian/mixed neighborhoods (I grew up in one), Guido was the prime insult for the gold chainers.

> "Mars"

Mars!

Remember when Prince played ClubUSA as an afterparty?

"Didn't need tittys to dance there!!!"

A very close (and very flat chested) friend of mine worked there. Said it had one of the best dressing rooms to shoot up in.

"Billy's Topless late of 6th Avenue and 19th street"

24th St, actually.

My wife worked coat check at Palladium in it's Steve Rubell and Ian Schrager disco phase. I had known them years before (before Studio 54) because I had a summer job with the Park's Dept at Douglaston Golf course and they opened "The Steak Loft", but late at night turned it into the precursor for 54. The wildest night I remember was when they decided to have "circus night" and some of the animals got loose and were roaming the fairways and they paid off all the early course staff to pretend ?something - I don't remember what; maybe "dangerous pesticide"? - had been sprayed and the course was going to open late that day - while everyone ran around rounding up the critters.

"Mars!"

If I remember correctly, it was this huge deal because it was the first time anyone had gotten a group of investors to spend $1 million to open a club in NYC. Funny, now days that wouldn't get you..........

It was also the first (non-gay sex or fetish) club in the Meat Packing District. It was on West Street and it really was quite deserted around there when the club was open.

I wasnt around for it, but i heard save the robots down ave. B was quite a place. I frequented the new soundfactory on 46 st...supercheesy but great if you wanted someplace to go at 4am

Thanks for the correction on Billy's 30 years..I guess I confused the geography (my ex never did). And I totally believe your comments on David J. I remember him barging into the ladies room at Mercer Arts with a clearly underage (as in younger than us and WE were underage) woman in tow and ordering everyone else out. Some of the other "stars" were just known for the cardinal sin of doing drugs openly and not sharing which was unacceptable behavoir for anyone. You want to keep your blow to yourself, wait for a stall.
Guido and coujine/coujette were used interchangibly for the gold chain and big hair set.Many of us in downtown Manhattan identified with this culture even if we thought we were WAY cooler than our B&T brethern because we went to places like 54 and Xenon as well as CBs and the Mudd Club.

Did anyone else frequent after hours places? Our favorites were the Venus Club on Thompson Street which is where most of the people who worked in downtown bars and clubs, straight or gay, went after closing. The other was the club 220 at 220 West Houston. It was almsot exclusively gay, go go boys in cages, but they didn't mind a few stoned neighborhood stragglers from heteroland. To get in you had to climb this really long steep flight of stairs, which on the night of my high school graduation in my Elton John platform pumps (see "Tommy"), I descended ass over head first. No serious injuries and bumps and bruises didn't hurt any worse than the hangover.

liz,
Years ago I was riding the #6 downtown and there was a funny station anouncer who mad a comment for each stop. As we approched city hall/brooklyn bridge the train conductor anounced,"City Hall, Brooklyn Bridge, Last stop in Manhattan...hang on all you coujines and coujinetts...we're going home".

i moved into that part of chelsea right before billy's died its death. isn't it now a bagel place?

liz, i went to some after-hours clubs, but i'm not a great all night gal so i barely recall them. you were most likely protected by your high level of alcohol. i know someone who was sleepwalking and fell down a flight of stairs and went through a plaster wall with only a few bruises. similar effect.

i was a teenager growing up in brooklyn in a very italian catholic family....and use to spend my weekends at studio 54(got in and passed that line every sat night in 1979...heyday), xenon, infinity, paradise garage, 12 west.....etc....ahhhhh the good old days of nyc.............

I forgot that Palladium was Rubell/Schrager, too!

Afterhours: To the extent that I did afterhours, it was Berlin. But mostly not.

I was truly sickened to hear about a bar or two (Nikki's? Kelly's? Brownie's?) that opened (legally) at 8am, and catered to the hip downtown after-afterhours crowd, and to serious alcoholics who waited and waited for 8am to come, so they could sit at the bar and drink their drinks with straws and no hands -- DT's caused too much spillage otherwise. But never went.

12 West! I'm pretty sure that was the space that became Private Eyes/Sound Factory Bar/Cheetah's on 21st St. Yes?

actually, ah, i'm pretty sure that the party at palladium i was talking about was a rubell/schrager thing. it was entirely over the top. and below the bottom for that type of venue. i mean truly. and i don't overreact easily.

the saddest thing was losing the people you loved to aids. it was simply and horrifically awful. but it did teach some of us compassion.

It was Kellys on 7th avenue. Kelly was also the owner (or at least the manager...there were rumors that other interests actually owned the place) of the Venus Club after hours. Alas, AIDS did take an enormous toll on the people who were part of the club scene in the 70s and 80s. Of course many of them didn't follow a healthy lifestyle in other ways, but so did most of us and we grew up and moved on...because a virus was lurking around that no one knew, alot of great people didn't get that chance.

There were also many other bars that opened at 8 am but they catered not to the still partying or already needing a drink but to those for whom 8am was 5pm. Hospital workers, cops, transit operators, anyone who worked the night shift and wanted a cold one at 8am found an accomodating gin mill. Wonder what they do now...

Why? Isn't 8am still the legal opening time?

There was a bar somewhere near that 53rd & 3rd zone that we recently discussed, which was known as the place for firemen to meet nurses. I picture firemen in full gear, or at least what they wear to go shopping at Fairway, and nurses dressed in traditional Flying Nun type nurse habits, and lots of each, and absolutely nobody else. Mostly in the evening, but I wonder if they got some of that lobster-shift crowd also ... ?

Palladium that is now NYU dorm? friends who graduated from Stern NYU b-school stayed there for their 2 year studies. Quite different from Madonna, Palladium days.

"Billy's Topless late of 6th Avenue and 19th street"

"24th St, actually."

Since we're into accuracy here, it should be pointed out that in Billy's later days on 24th Street, the name was changed to "Billy's STopless." If you recall we used to have this Mayor named Giuliani who was keen on sanitizing our Fair City and his minions ordained that there would be no more "Topless" bars in respectable residential areas. So Billy's along with other fine purveyors of flesh, got out the paint and added an "S" to their signs.

Alan, I think 8 am is still legal opening but I question how many gin mills still exisit. Somehow a wine bar or lounge doesn't seem appropriate.

The bar you are referring to was, I suspect, Suspenders at 38th and 2nd. It was a cops and firemen mecca which acted as a magnet for nurses...and other single, straight females. I had some of the most fun and worst times of my life in that bar(which despite the signficant cop presence was hardly a drug free zone)

Explain to me why Bloomberg should be re-elected?

Pro: he's done a good job
Con: lack of respect for law(i.e. term limit)

lizyank, i've never really looked, but how about McSwiggan's at 23rd and 2nd. And Rudy's in Hells Kitchen (although i think i read that the Rude bar might be closing if they don't get permission for outdoor space. i haven't been there in years, had my NYC going-away party there in 1990 complete with partners from the law firm where i worked, but that seems wrong on so many levels, a patio at the rude bar?).

lizy:

Save the Robots
The World
8BC
Crisco Disco
Brownie's
Club 82
Paradise Garage
Underground

I;m sure I'm leaving a bunch out (and the list isn't only after hours spots), but I may be the only person here still going to after hours spots....