Blogging on Meds

In February 2007, The Box opened. In May I was assigned to write a story about the club for New York Magazine. For the next few weeks, every Tuesday through Saturday, I snuck in to–or attempted to sneak in to–the club with the tightest guest list in America. (New York Mag definitely sent me there a few times with Scores stripper/novelist Ruth Fowler, check her memoir to be published by Viking this winter. And yes, that’s right, 2007’s ASME sweeping publication partnered an untrained writer/low life with a novelist/stripper as a “guide” for a story about a sex club—SIGN UP OR RENEW YOUR SUBSCRIPTION NOW, BITCHES!!!) Soon enough, The Box’s owner, Simon Hammerstein, found out there was a spy in his whorehouse-theater-disco. But instead of kicking me out, Hammerstein let me shadow him for a few more weeks. One thing’s certain: Hammerstein lives the wildest life of any downtown New Yorker. The amount of drug use I left out of this story could get an entire block of the city high for a month. Best off the record quote (which I heard from three different sources): “They never should have gotten rid of the Russian hookers.” Anyway, the week the story was to close, it got killed. Here’s the final draft, which has never been read by anyone save the NYMag folk and my girlfriend. Thanks to the brilliant Adam Fisher, New York’s former news editor, for conceiving and shaping this story.

June 28, 2007
Inside the Box
By Ray LeMoine

The city’s most exclusive nightclub of the moment does not, officially, exist. It’s not open to the public and probably never will be. It’s habitués – the pre-rehab Lohan, Diddy and his posse, Jigga, Leo, Oliver Stone, Shakira, Matt Dillon – are careful never to refer to the place as a mere club: it’s the mark of an insider to describe it as a “dinner theater” or “cabaret.” Even it’s location is a badly kept secret: 191 Chrystie Street is not only unmarked, its camouflaged to blend seamlessly into a barren post-industrial stretch of the Lower East Side.

The non-place in question is The Box, and ever since its “soft” opening in February, the boite has cultivated a reputation for uber-exclusivity and mystery. Reserving a table must be done through a manager or an owner, (though on weeknights it is possible to walk up and haggle a reservation) and the prices start at $600 on the floor and $900 in the balcony – the highest price in clubland. The money buys a bottle of mediocre champagne but no booze, and a bottle of vodka starts at $450.

The Box has taken the aesthetics of a Meat Packing/ West Chelsea micro-club (Bungalow 8, Pink Elephant, Cain, Stereo–none are much bigger than a two car garage) further downtown than any other Page Six approved “bottles and models” purveyor. Like its West Side Brethren, The Box is a tiny space that requires expensive reservations and caters to a Transatlantic crowd looking to swim in the energy of celebrity. But The Box defies club cliché. Out is the minimalist, Steven Lewis-designed futurism. Instead, The Box is made to look like a decaying relic from a century ago. (In case you’re in the market, the going rate for a brand old mini-theater is a mere $3million.)

What’s more, they’ve bottled downtown’s timeless underground decadence and are selling it onstage as a nightly variety show. The club kids who used to host the mega-club parties of yesteryear have been recruited to sing, strip, act, dance, and screw in an ADD-orientated show that’s equal parts Weimar, Kit Kat Klub, and YouTube. Another sign o’ the times: Acts are kept in the show based on crowd approval ala American Idol. The high cost of viewing such spectacle has not deterred the crowds. While only about 400 or 500 people can pass through The Box per night, its outré reputation attracts at least another 2000 or so, who get turned away at the door.

Scheduled to meet Box owner Simon Hammerstein late on a recent Thursday, I show up at The Box’s address. If I didn’t already know better, it would be hard to believe that this dilapidated two-story industrial building houses an opulent $3 million dollar nightclub. From the sidewalk, the only clue to what’s inside is that the red brick facade has actually been de-grimed this century and the silver script reading “Spanjer Signs” above the door is, again, suspiciously too clean looking.

4:10pm

A bearded longhair in army shorts and plastic sandals bursts out the door of the building next door to The Box, looking slightly confused. He walks over to The Box’s front door to greet a waiting girl. “Are you here for rehearsals?” he asks, flashing a smile.

“Yes. I do burlesque.”

“Great, I’m Simon,” he extends his hand.

“I’m Dani Lou.”

“I love that name.”

Next, Hammerstein introduces himself to me. “I live next door. My apartment’s also The Box’s office,” he says by way of explanation. “Let’s go inside.” Rehearsals are about to begin.

4:16pm

Except for a few dozen employees and performers, The Box’s 2000 square foot ground floor is empty, but it still feels cramped–intimate would be understatement. “We wanted to keep it small enough so everyone can see each other,” Hammerstein explains. “The room’s capacity is 390 but we rarely go above 250—it gets too crowded.”

There is only space for eight booths and four tables on the main floor, overhead are eight tiny balcony booths, painted creamy white, with red curtains. The stage is small, but nevertheless manages to dwarf the tiny theater itself, and its billowing red velvet curtain takes up the entire far wall. Several different wallpaper prints–mostly flower patterns–canvas the other walls, colliding and overlapping like collage. The overall effect is a feeling of louche, aristocratic decay.

4:45PM

The company makes final preparations before auditions and the cast takes the stage–curtains are being pulled aside by stagehands, the lights are being tested in a spectral show, and the house band does a sound check.

5:06pm

Richard Kimmel, a Box co-producer and partner, appears and joins Hammerstein and me at the corner booth. “Richard, can we tell New York Magazine how horny you are?”

“Me? Nice try Simon. You may be the horniest person I’ve ever known.”

Kimmel, 38, once produced a stage version of Conrad’s The Secret Agent, but now plays the straight guy to Hammerstein’s whacked boy wonder. Before The Box, Kimmel spent nearly a decade with The Wooster Group. The two are the main creative force behind the nightly shows, which occur at 1am, 2:30am, and 3:30am Wednesday through Saturday. Monday is reserved for private parties, and Tuesday is “Sex Night.” “Any auditions today?” Kimmel asks to no one in particular.

5:30pm

The burlesque girl we met outside, Dani Lou, takes the stage. She dances to a traditional jig featuring bad-ump-bump beats and horns, finishing nude save for a fluffy electric-blue hand fan.

“Can we interview her naked?” Hammerstein asks. Kimmel snickers. Dani Lou returns, clothed. Kimmel solicits, “Can you start tonight?” She nods yes, her red lipstick-ed lips grinning.

6:16pm

Seven girls, uniformly perky and nearly all blonde, practice dance moves on the stage, on the floor, along the bar—anywhere they can find room in the small space. Firm legs ripple and stomp and kick to a “1-2-3-4” count. These are the Hammerstein Beauties, The Box’s version of the Rockettes.

Soon a tall, tan, buff man wearing a denim jacket, Nikes, and jeans, with a bleached blonde hair-do styled into Devil’s horns appears, exchanging high fives with another guy who’s wearing a striped suit and holding a chainsaw.

6:38pm

The horned devil begins to rehearse with the Beauties, doing a sexed up version of “Nasty Girls.” He’s Raven O, the Box’s poly-sexual master of ceremonies. An ex-club kid, Raven went from being a go-go dancer at Limelight in the 80s to hosting a long running drag show at Bar d’O in the West Village before winding up in Vegas with Cirque du Soleil.

Kimmel explains it all to me: “The band, Raven, and the dancers anchor the show. Everything else changes nightly, weekly. We’ve had a 150 performers in three months.” Including Mini-Britney Spears, a singing and dancing blonde midget, who was swiped by Beacher’s Mad House in Las Vegas for a “six-figure” deal. Kimmel estimates the show’s cost at $50,000 a week. Thus, all the money from the high table costs “goes right up there on the stage and out the back door,” as Hammerstein puts it.

7:05pm

I’m still sitting with Hammerstein and Kimmel when another Box owner, Serge Becker, saunters in. Kimmel says, “That’s The Godfather. Serge is our Svengali.” Becker, 45, wears a green sweater and striped pants, his head a mound of downtown stubble. He joins us. Back in the 80s, the Swiss-born Becker ran Area, New York’s first performance-art nightclub. He then went on a hit parade that included M.K., Bowery Bar, Joe’s Pub, La Esquina, and, most recently, 205, a sleaze infused fashion disco a few doors up Chrystie.

The three partners discuss a recent Tuesday sex show. “Did you see it the other night? He was really nailing her,” Becker says, his entire face crumpled by a mega-smile.

“Damn, I missed it,” Hammerstein replies.

“It was just a show,” Kimmel stresses, looking at me with a big grin.

I ask Becker what he considers to be The Box’s theme.

“The end of the Empire,” he responds.

8:09pm

Enter a petite mixed-race woman carrying a Marc Jacobs shopping bag the size of small coffin. Simon introduces me to Miriam, The Box’s door girl. She wears a white tank top and has a flower in her hair. “I had to blow a bunch of guys to get these clothes,” she says.

9:00pm

The company takes a dinner break; the downstairs kitchen prepares an in-house meal—The Box is in fact a dinner theater.

10:15pm

I’m around the corner at Stanton Public, an Irish bar, where the Box pre-game is underway: a couple of Hammerstein’s showgirls down hard liquor at a table, small groups of people over-dressed for a pub hover about, the bathroom line is remarkably long.

11pm

The first Box hopefuls peacock their way towards the front door—is it open yet? Is anyone looking at me? I’m dressed pretty awesome, aren’t I? But the doors are locked.

11:45pm

Black SUVs, Town Cars, taxis, and limos clog Chrystie. A throng of fifty-plus surround The Box’s doors. Swaying arms adorned by Swiss watches wave above the fray, many yelling the name of a Box owner. Each Swiss-watchman is with at least one woman, often more. Most of the women wear dresses, many of the dresses are shiny, and all are of high American and European design. A few women even wear ball gowns. Hundreds of times an hour, Miriam says without looking up, “Sorry, we can’t help accommodate you tonight. Reservations and guest list only.” Even small groups of well-dressed model-types get turned away, something that never happens at the other clubs around town.

Miriam doesn’t seem to remember me, even though Simon introduced us just a few hours before.

A sampling of the guests ushered pass the velvet rope on this night: a dozen pinstriped suited white guys, my neighbor’s pot dealer’s roommate, a biracial fashion designer, three off-duty strippers, the guy who does graphics for a skate shop called Supreme, a middle-aged leather magnate dressed like David Lee Roth circa 1985, a crack-addled ER doctor, many-a models, a few gangster looking black guys, a bridal party of Amazon-Asian women, two gay guys wearing their bow ties to the side on open collared shirts, novelist Dana Vachon, and a handful of Botox-ed fashion industry women in their 30s.

12:15am

Having upgraded from bro-gear to a bespoke suit sans tie, Hammerstein stands in the lobby, and every time the front door swings open a chorus of “Simon’s” burst from the crowd. Me and my date follow him upstairs, past a small lounge area with a stripper pole to a VIP lounge where about forty people comfortably loiter. Hammerstein lines up a fistfull of tequila shots, ordering a round of fine vodka on the rocks as chasers. I ask Simon about the incredibly tight door policy. “In theory every night is a private party,” he says. “That means we can actually cast the crowd as opposed to letting people in based on their bank accounts”

12:45am

Moving downstairs, my friend and I take seats along the bar under the red glow of a chandelier. Soon enough, a gray haired gentleman is chatting up my companion. Feeling left out, I eavesdrop on my neighbors: A short, orange-skinned guy with a spike haircut circa 92 and a very unbuttoned white silk shirt stands with a tall black woman in a matching white dress. “Too many drugs, too many drugs,” the woman says.

12:47am

The gray haired man announces his million-dollar credit line by pulling out a Black Amex. He purchases a round of Patron on the rocks and begins talking me up while attempting to palm a clear container of white powder to my friend. Black Amex wears a sailing suit: khaki pants and blue dinner jacket with silk hanky in the breast pocket, and boxy, big-rimmed black-framed sunglasses. He claims he’s 65 but looks much older, and he tells us that he’s a “doctor.” More small talk ensues. I explain I’m a “writer.” Then, out of nowhere Dr. Black Amex announces, “I love hookers. These women look like hookers.” Then he gets really weird: “And I love men’s assholes.” Dr. Bisexual Black Amex asks me to watch his drink. He stands, nearly knocking me off my chair, and then dumps some white powder from the container on his knuckle to sniff it—in the open, next to the bar. And off he goes.

1:00am

Showtime. Standing room only in the main hall. People clamber atop chairs, tables, couches, and dangle from balconies. The curtain lifts and out comes Raven O and the girls, backed by the band, doing an ensemble version of Blur’s polygamous classic “Girls and Boys.” People cheer, clap, and yell—none louder than Hammerstein, who heckles his own show. Raven wears skin-tight black pants covered by an all over print of David Bowie’s Ziggy face. He’s soon shirtless, revealing a rippled, tattoo strewn torso. “All-American” is inked on his stomach in ye olde English script. The Hammerstein Beauties dance a can-can. They are flinging their legs, their backs arced—giving their pasty-covered breasts added curve.

“Heeyyy,” Hammerstein shouts to me over the music “Fucking Richard’s playing guitar right now. It’s his birthday! The regular guitarist is sick with the flu.” Sure enough, there’s Kimmel on the side of the stage jamming it up.

A necrophilia kabuki performance bores the crowd. But the energy returns in the next act: two lesbians in latex and leather using dildos on each other to a soundtrack of sinister electronica.

1:59am

Peering outside, I see that a crowd still waits. A long-haired rocker guy is trying to name-drop his way past Miriam. “I’m here to see my friend Dani dance burlesque,” he says, referring to the same girl I saw audition. The gambit works. His name is Jordan. I ask him how he knows Dani. “She comes to my bar a lot, but this might be kind of awkward. Don’t think she’s ever done burlesque before. Also don’t think I’ve ever seen a friend get nude onstage.”

2:21am

At the back of The Box’s main hall are two computerized cash registers, and from the right angle you can see their screens. Under a column reading “late-night totals” is a staggering number: $38,254. Flashing on screen over the next few minutes, as servers come in and out, are several individual table totals above $4000, and one above $6000 –a single table that in any ordinary New York bar would be a decent night’s total. The $50,000 that Kimmel claims the show costs per week seems to recoup nicely.

2:28am

Hammerstein stands on the side of the stage gently shaking a bottle of champagne. Then Raven O calls Richard Kimmel onstage and leads the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday.” Hammerstein sprays the bubbly on the birthday boy; both cackle with laughter.

With that, the second show is under way. Raven O, wearing a purple leisure suit, sings Clapton’s “Cocaine” lounged out. At song’s end Raven dumps a big ole bag of “blow” on the crowd. Three girls in the back seem to think the coke is real and scramble towards the front only to be let down. Next up is the burlesque show. Dani comes out strutting, flinging herself around a chair, and is soon naked except stiletto heels. Jordan watches with a crooked smile, “Well, it does feel a bit weird.”

3:02am

My friend and I venture downstairs to the restroom area. The men’s room is minimal, non-descript. The attendant, middle-aged and black, tells me, “Have a good time. You earned it.” I ask him how wild it gets down here. “Wild. But next door is where the action is.” Across the hall is the ladies room, a palatial series of wooden-doored stalls. I walk in for some recon. A young girl at the mirror speaks into a cell phone, “People in Arizona are hot but really dumb.” The air is a cacophony of perfumes. A man in a sports jacket enters a stall with two miniskirted women.

3:15am

I find Hammerstein standing on a booth, his arms flapping. He grabs me and brings me down a private stairway to the performers’ dressing room, where a cock theme dominates–gay pornos, penis rulers, and, on the wall, a picture of Raven O with his tattooed schlong whipped out. Then the real Raven comes in and is asked to show us the star inked on its tip. “Getting it was four hours of pure hell,” he says.

3:38am

Onstage, a naked woman has multiple neon dildos stuck in multiple orifices. People from the crowd have been given rings to toss onto the protruding dildos. Next up is the last act of the night: Shafer the Dark Lord, a neurotic white rapper from the future. “Found this guy on YouTube. I bet he tanks. This late, people can’t focus on much,” Hammerstein says. Shafer wears a black suit and performs a song about clones, clone sex and clone war. As predicted, he bombs. The room starts to clear. “Shafer’s going back to the web,” says Hammerstein, in his best Simon Cowell impersonation. I ask of Dani Lou’s fate. “Oh, she stays. For sure,” Hammerstein smiles. “I heard a rumor that sex sells.”

4:00am

Miriam and Hammerstein sit down for an end of the workday drink. Miriam—again—has no idea who I am so Simon introduces us for the third time. I bid them both farewell and head out.

4:10am

Out front a dedicated few still linger, even though the ropes are gone and the door is locked. Traffic on Chrystie Street has been reduced to a few waiting taxis and black SUVs. A lone paparazzi stands in the shadows kicking at a can. The empty street’s a fine reality check—wait, the rest of the world isn’t a postmodern sex club? Drunk, I head home to brace for the wicked hangover to come.

TAGS: Cocaine, Crack, Drugs, drunk, HBO, kids, Las Vegas, model, Music, New York, NSA, Practice, Race, Rehab, russia, Soundtrack, Sports, strippers, The Box, war, youtube

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