The Box

When I visited NYC one recent weekend after moving out of the city three years ago, I suspected that the declining residence of young artists and creative professionals and 24 hour party people due to the increasing exorbitance of rent prices, unapologetic gentrification and inevitible waxing and waning of the city's status as The Place to Be, I imagined my cynicism would turn out to be jealousy and resentment about the fact that I traded in my former late-night, NYC lifestyle for a less cultured adulthood in the Midwest, and that I'd regret ever leaving. After all, I'd heard that The Box was reigniting the dwtwn Zietgeist (sp?) with the energy of Studio 54, celebrity voltage of Bungalow 8 (and the 'right' celebs, no less), intellectual stimulation of an off-off Broadway show and party-people privileges of Sway or the C--k, circa late-90s, early 2000s. I should have more trust in my instincts. Once I lied my way through the velvet rope (ah, the good old days), spent my brunch money on a single cocktail and looked around, I knew that either I had become a lame grown-up who just didn't 'get it' or that this is the most pretentious, pseudo-cool/smart/hip nonsense I'd seen since the first (and last) Jeremy Scott fashion show I ever went to. While its possible that this could be that I was out on a weekend night as opposed to the "real NYC" nights during the week, this place is too young and the door is too tight for it to be b&t yet. And, shockingly, the upstairs was harder to get into than Bungalow's front door. I was officially finished when I approached the black amazon upstairs who I remembered as a friend of a friend years ago, and who when I asked about entry and told her of our past acquaintance, actually denied she ever knew me until I reminded her of a certain bathroom at Cafe Noir after which her fabulosity was forced to burb on humble pie. She still didn't let me up there. But that's okay. I've seen it done better before anyway. NYC is in supernova.