Talking About the BoxIn our continuing coverage of Simon Hammerstein’s new Lower East Side rich-people-pretending-to-be-bohemian playground, the Box, we’ve remembered a conversation we had with Hammerstein last week at that Queen Mary 2 party, in which he once again describes a venue that seems almost nothing like its reality:
New York: Everyone’s talking about the Box. How are you handling the hype?
Hammerstein: One day at a time. It’s too early to smell the roses. We’re trying to transform the space every season. The feedback has been remarkable, but that doesn’t mean my job is over. It’s a full-time job.
New York: How do you cultivate a fun, engaging place to be without alienating everybody?
Hammerstein: It’s a job unto itself. For me the quintessential night in New York is a diverse, mixed room: freaks to conservatives. As long as we appreciate all walks of life and we’re open to that. People are people.
New York: Ever been disallowed entrance into a club yourself?
Hammerstein: Oh, God, everyone has. I remember being drunk at Marquee and my own friend wouldn’t let me in because he said I was too drunk. I threw my driver’s license at him and reminded him who I was. Embarrassing.
In so many ways.
Earlier:
Boxed Out
‘Radar’ Throws a Party, and We Discover We Are Not Cool Enough to Buy Drinks
Related: Britannica Ball [Interactive Party Lines]
grub street
Boxed OutRemember when we told you that the Box, Simon Hammerstein’s new, insufferably pretentious so-called “dinner theater” non-club on the Lower East Side was in fact so insufferably pretentious that we’d never set foot in the place again? Well, we rest our case.
Michael Herr of the Box Serves Scarlett Johansson, Experiences a ‘Brush of Excitement’ [Grub Street]
Earlier: ‘Radar’ Throws a Party, and We Discover We Are Not Cool Enough to Buy Drinks
Related: What’s In the Box? [NYM]
