INDULGENCES travel by joseph schmitt
Do I Still New York is the city that has it all, and for some people
it’s all about the museums, the shopping, the theatre or the dining. For me though, it’s always been about the drinking and carousing. After more than a decade since I called these mean streets home, little has changed… with me anyway. New York, however, has changed quite a bit, and not all for the better. Cigarettes now top $10 a pack, my go-to liquor stores are suddenly Starbucks, baby strollers almost outnumber gay men in the once terra firma of the West Village, even Chelsea. Gone are the glory days of old New York when massive nightclubs and drug dealers ruled the nightlife. The notorious Limelight, a former Episcopal Church
turned nightclub, on Sixth Avenue, that gave rise to the ’90s Club Kid movement, is now a retail mall. The sweat-soaked dance floor and scandalous alcoves that once signaled the triumph of disco over dogma now showcase imported chocolate and darling cupcakes. Consumerism, it would seem, is stronger than a pulpit and a turntable. If Michael Alig, the iconic murderous Party Monster of New York, gains his parole in 2010 as he hopes, he’ll surely find it easier to score a sugar high and a caffeine buzz over an eight-ball at today’s Limelight Marketplace (
www.limelightmarketplace.com). I fully understand that melancholia is a useless emo-
tion, and I’m not necessarily pining for the old days of rampant drug use and other careless behavior. I do believe the new generations of gay Manhattanites are smarter and stronger. But I’m also fairly sure they don’t have the CBGB-style urban edge that really did make New York the best city in the world. But it’s a safer and more respectable world now. And while a part of me resists that notion, the more mature man in me says, that’s a good thing. Yes, I do still love New York, just not in the same way I used to.
WHERE TO DRINK… OR NOT: I had heard a lot of buzz about the new sports bar,
Boxers (
boxersnyc.com), so perhaps my expectations were slightly elevated. At first sight, the crowded bar looked promising, but the noticeable absence of syn- ergy became quickly clear. It wasn’t the concept of a gay sports bar that bothered me, it was more the execution. The spacious bar seemed bland, the televisions played international sporting events that nobody watched,
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RAGE monthly | AUGUST 2010
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