Feature

Nightlife '99: Nightclub Limbo

With start-up costs so high, few establishments go into business solely as dance clubs, anyway. Many live more conventional existences by day, as restaurants and catering halls. One 51, a fledgling establishment on East 50th Street at the site of the old Tatou, also functions as a restaurant and the room-service facility for three neighboring hotels. "When I'm leaving on Friday or Saturday at six in the morning after doing all the reconciling, my crew is here setting up for the breakfast at 6:30," says Chas White, One 51's owner. "We're trying to juggle a lot of things."

Exclusive velvet-rope policies are largely a thing of the past, too, thanks to owners desperate to recoup their overhead. "Here, if you have the right dress code, if you look good, you get in," admits Marvisi, who charges a $25 cover. "We can't afford to be that choosy."

Many in the industry believe they shouldn't have to go to such extremes. After all, according to Andrew Rasiej, president of the New York Nightlife Association, Manhattan nightclubs have a $2.9 billion economic impact on the city. In 1997, his trade organization hired Audience Research and Analysis, the same firm that took Broadway's pulse in 1994, to do a survey, which revealed that nightclubs provide 27,000 jobs to the city and $240 million in state and city taxes, plus higher attendance than all of New York's professional sports teams, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Empire State Building, and Broadway theaters combined. Then there are the other Manhattan mainstays that hinge on nightlife's survival. "The average New Yorker spends $2,500 a year on clothes just to go out at night," Rasiej points out.

So what future does the mirror ball really hold? While big clubs are likely to weather the current storm, smaller homegrown venues may get washed away. Philip Rodrigue, owner-manager of the tiny electronica-oriented club Baktun, says he worked 75-to-80-hour weeks for a period of fifteen months just to sort out the permits for his 200-capacity space after getting a series of $200 tickets for not having a cabaret license. The city wouldn't close his case until he presented every last paper to a judge. By that point, he had more than once contemplated bankruptcy.

Ironically, it is only ultrahuge venues like Exit, the very clubs the city abhors the most, that have the cash and connections to withstand an extended ordeal. Still, David Marvisi isn't taking any chances. Every Friday night, starting this week, before the bacchanalia at 56th Street begins, a Cirque de Soleil-like dance troupe will put on an hourlong performance in the main room -- an added benefit included in the price of admission. "I'm hoping to do many more corporate events; we might even do a Broadway show here," he adds optimistically. "The stage is designed to fit an eighteen-piece orchestra."

Additional reporting by Ethan Smith.