NYC's Roxy Is Now An Art Gallery

NYC's famed Roxy nightclub, arguably the city's last gay megaclub, closed in March 2007 and was supposed to be immediately demolished for luxury condos. Almost five years later the Chelsea building is still standing and this week it opened as a massive gallery space.  Via Hyperallergic:

The new gallery, the site of the former Roxy nightclub and roller rink on West 18th Street, is pretty much the opposite — a cavernous warehouse that, although it’s technically only one floor, seems to expand and spread in every direction. The space, first and foremost, is huge: 23,000 square feet, bested probably only by David Zwirner’s 30,000 square feet a block north and Gagosian’s 25,000 square feet of space nearby on West 24th Street. Compared to those two, both of them quite pristine white cubes, Hauser & Wirth’s new gallery has a much grungier, more industrial feel. Co-owner Marc Payot touched on that in his remarks yesterday, saying the gallery “didn’t want to create another white cube. We wanted to respect the architecture.” Not that huge, industrial spaces are anything new, mind you, but it’s just as well: the place is pretty jaw-dropping as is, and though there’s no doubt I’d prefer Chelsea still sport a roller disco rather than yet another massive gallery, at least the shell of the Roxy — its vaulted ceilings and skylights, a small plate on the floor where the roller rink used to start — remains.

(Tipped by JMG reader Ed)

NYC Event Promoter And Gay Magazine Publisher Marc Berkley Dies at 56

Famed NYC club promoter and one-time magazine kingpin Marc Berkley died unexpectedly in his sleep last night on Fire Island. Berkley reportedly had a heart attack. He was 56. Berkley was the co-founder of HX Media, the now-defunct gay publishing company that owned the popular nightlife guide HX Magazine and the LGBT news title The New York Blade.

Berkley became a dominant force in Manhattan nightlife twenty years ago, when as the longtime promoter of Chelsea's famed Limelight disco, he and business partner Matthew Bank founded Homo Xtra, a folded newsletter guide to parties and nightclubs. (And an essential list of must-dos that I was never without when visiting NYC.) Later Homo Xtra morphed into HX Magazine, a glossy weekly whose high production values and titillating cover photos influenced similar gay bar guides around the world. Avalon Media, which owned a stake in HX Media, was forced into receivership by its creditors in February 2009. Several months later, HX Magazine was sold to competing NYC nightlife guide Next Magazine, who shortly afterwards ceased its publication. Two days after the sale of HX, the New York Blade shut down as well.

In 2001, when he was probably at the height of his influence on Manhattan's gay nightlife, New York Magazine wrote a frank, but fascinating profile on Berkley. An excerpt:

Scratch a gay party promoter and more often than not you'll find a fledgling political activist; Berkley's no exception. Especially when it comes to Mayor Giuliani's relentless war on the city's nightclubs: "We're living in Nazi Germany done by Disney right now." He's told Gatien that he'd be willing to do events at the Limelight free, because "if that club stays open one day longer than Giuliani's term, we've won." Over the years, Berkley's served on his community board, coordinated Heritage of Pride's nineteenth and twentieth anniversaries, and donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to gay charities. Even HX was conceived as a political statement: "I used to sit in on act-up's fund-raising meetings every weekend; that's where I met Matthew Bank. It was 1990, and at the time, Outweek was more or less the only gay publication -- Matthew and I used to call it The New York Native Medical Journal, because every week, it was all about dying. There was nothing about what else was going on in the city. That's how we came up with the idea for HX, as an alternative to that."

Nightlife figures, DJs, fellow promoters, and longtime customers are leaving messages of tribute on Berkley's Facebook page.

UPDATE: Berkley's former business partner, Matthew Bank, sends the following message: "I am truly saddened by the passing of my dear friend and former business partner Marc Berkley. His creative spirit and boundless energy helped make New York gay nightlife a shamefully good time for what seems like forever. Working with him to create HX was a grand adventure that I will relish for the rest of my life. I'll miss him terribly."

Nightclubbing: Will New York City Finally Get Another Gay Mega Dance Spot?

Currently only three* gay nightclubs in NYC have the necessary cabaret license that allows dancing: Chelsea's medium-sized Splash, the basement room of the Monster in the West Village, and Escuelita, the Hell's Kitchen drag and Latin club. This week, the highly anticipated reopening of the legendary Roxy was finally (and probably, permanently) shot down when the backers of a new venture for the property retreated after facing fierce opposition from the venue's West Chelsea neighbors.

But via Paul Schindler at Gay City News, we learn of a massive project proposed for West 42nd Street that, should it come to fruition, would be the largest and most elaborate gay entertainment complex in the city.

At a time when city officials nervously double-check and then triple-check their once confident projections about tourism growth and more than a few gay locals grumble about the dearth of fresh nightlife choices, a $20 million project could bring nearly 80,000 square feet in tourism and dance club space to West 42nd Street — in the form of New York’s first full-service gay hotel and the first new nightclub serving the LGBT community in more than five years to have a cabaret license, needed if patrons wish to dance. Officially described as “The Out NYC: a hospitality and entertainment destination geared to the gay community,” the project, due to be completed by early next year, is informally dubbed “a hetero-friendly urban resort” by its developers. In addition to 123 guest rooms and a 10,000-square-foot dance club capable of serving 750 patrons, the project — which will renovate a three-story building originally developed as a Travel Inn in 1960 to accommodate the crowds expected at the 1964 World’s Fair and later used by the Red Cross, before it was abandoned several years ago — will also include a gym, spa, restaurant, and 24/7 café, making it the most ambitious commercial development ever to court New York’s gay community.

It should be said that a dance club that holds 750 people strains the definition of what we've known as a "megaclub," but in these days of dwindling and smaller gay dance clubs, that's pretty good. According to Schindler's exhaustive article, seasoned NYC promoter John Blair, the man behind the demised Roxy, will be resurrecting his late Chelsea club XL at the new complex on W.42nd.

*The NYC Eagle may have a cabaret license for its relatively small ground floor, but I've only seen dancing there on the day of the Folsom East Street Fair.

HomoQuotable - Jason McCarthy

"O.K., everybody, remember what I told you. Smile a lot. Hug people a lot. Tell them how important the gay community has been to this place. O.K.?” - Roxy manager Jason McCarthy, giving his employees their final instructions Saturday night, as the legendary nightclub opened its doors for the last time. Over 4000 clubbers paid their last respects until noon on Sunday, when DJ Peter Rauhofer dropped the needle on Donna Summer's Last Dance, prompting not a few tears.

And the last gay megaclub in NYC is gone, as is an era of gay nightlife that we may not see again. The internet, crystal meth, high real estate prices, and the furious gentrification of formerly derelict urban warehouse districts have pretty much ended both the supply and demand for large gay dance clubs around the country. I feel sorry for the young gay men just entering their nightclub years, who may never know the spectacle and wonder of thousands and thousands of their peers moving in joy under the disco ball.
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Roxy To Close March 10th

New York City's legendary Roxy closes forever on March 10th, shortly before the building is set to be demolished. Originally a truck warehouse, then a roller-skating rink, Roxy has a been a staple of Manhattan nightlife for over 25 years and has hosted virtually ever pop star important to the gay community: Madonna, Cher, Bette Midler, etc. Roxy began its nighclub life as a host for break-dancing competitions and was the location for the 1984 movie Beat Street.

I haven't been to the Roxy since a DJ showcase (Jerry Bonham / Paul van Dyk) late in 2005, and I haven't been to their gay night in three or four years, but I did like the Roxy. It will be missed. Will another gay megaclub step into the void created by the departures of Roxy, Limelight, etc? The trend seems to be towards smaller rooms, more intimate spaces. There probably isn't a big space left in Manhattan anyway. Here's a great history of the Roxy, from NY Blade writer Matt Kalkhoff.
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