A bouncer at Spirit, a club on West 27th Street in Manhattan, checking young women's IDs. Many say underage patrons have no trouble getting in.Posted on 07/30/2006 1:56:33 PM PDT by Coleus
| A bouncer at Spirit, a club on West 27th Street in Manhattan, checking young women's IDs. Many say underage patrons have no trouble getting in. |
The velvet rope outside one of Manhattan's trendiest nightclubs was but a gateway for Michael, a 19-year-old from Long Island. Followed by his four male friends, all 19 or 20, he sashayed past a stagnant line of 50 people waiting outside Mood NY during the early morning hours Saturday. From a pocket inside his black sports jacket, he pulled out his Bank of America credit card and whispered to the bouncer that he planned to buy a $300 bottle of Grey Goose vodka once inside.
Like that, the cavernous nightclub's doors opened, releasing a scalp-tingling belch of hip-hop music onto East 28th Street, one of several blocks in lower Manhattan that have become meccas for teenagers from North Jersey and other suburbs seeking the thrills of grown-up, big-city nightlife. "When I go out, this is my identification," Michael said later, holding up his credit card and describing what has become a weekend ritual for his teenage friends, who requested that their last names be withheld.
Michael and other young club-goers interviewed Friday night and early Saturday said most suburban teenagers know well the secrets of passage into Manhattan's freewheeling mega-nightclubs: Have money. Look sexy. Or know someone. As might be expected, the perils of being underage and overindulgent are not as widely acknowledged by teenagers. Serving as a chilling reminder last week was the beating, rape and murder of a Harrington Park 18-year-old, whose night began with a booze binge in an exclusive West Side Manhattan club Tuesday night. The murder also raised questions about how strictly Manhattan clubs enforce age restrictions.
Jennifer Moore was walking down the West Side Highway drunk and alone at around 5 a.m. when she got into a cab with 34-year-old Draymond Coleman of West New York. Minutes earlier, Moore had stumbled away from a nearby impound lot, where an intoxicated friend fainted while arguing with a parking clerk who refused to release their towed car because the girls were too drunk. Police say Coleman took Moore to a Weehawken motel, where he raped her, strangled her and then dumped her body in a trash bin near the building.
Mostly unfazed, club-goers Friday night complained of heightened security and stricter identification checks in the wake of the killing. But many predicted the gruesome murder would not slow what has become a rite of passage for precocious suburban teens. "Clubbing is huge," said Mike Witmer, a 17-year-old from Bernardsville who rode the PATH train with friends into Manhattan on Friday evening. "It's really trendy. The whole point is to be seen." Music, not drinking, was on the agenda Friday night, they said. Mike and his friend Eva Jensen, a 16-year-old from Califon in Hunterdon County, were bound for a concert at the Bowery Ballroom with two friends from Westfield, Dan Chabanov and Susannah Page-Katz. But had they been tempted, Susannah said, it would have been easy to find a place to drink, even without an ID.
"If you dress right and look cute enough, they let you in," Susannah said.
Another train passenger, Megan Davis, said that rule served her well when she was under 21 and going to bars and clubs in Manhattan. She is 22 now, confident about how attractive she looks on these nights, with long brown hair, heels and a short white miniskirt that barely covered her thighs. "When I went out at 18, I got in everywhere," said Davis, who lives in Summit and works for a fashion company in Rochelle Park. "It depends on how you look and what you're wearing."
Drunk on arrival
Hoboken's PATH station is a conduit for young people bound for New York. Several PATH conductors complained that kids are often drunk by the time they arrive, fresh from drinking on NJ Transit's commuter trains, which permit passengers to consume alcohol. They yell at one another, and fumble to put their tickets into the turnstile's reader. A PATH station official shook his head at the mention of kids running onto trains bound for binge drinking in the city. "They are totally undisciplined," said the PATH official, who asked not to be named because his employer does not allow workers to be interviewed without permission. "It's nothing you can control, because New York City is the magnet."
Friday night, the section of Chelsea around the ultra-posh Guest House, where Jennifer Moore went with friends Tuesday night, looked like the Las Vegas strip plopped down among the metal shops, parking lots and warehouses of the city's underused far West Side. Police put up metal blockades, stopping traffic from turning onto 27th and 28th streets. An officer said this was common practice on weekends to ensure the safety of the crowds that gather outside the clubs. By midnight, the streets were filled with high-heeled young women walking in slight shorts and clingy shirts that could pass for bikinis. Men wore dark pants and double-cuffed shirts. The line to enter any of the dozens of clubs was a block long. Some people skipped the lines, calling out bouncers by their first names. Others left in frustration.
Outside Marquee on 10th Avenue, one of three women from River Edge estimated that half of the people inside were underage and had gotten in by either showing fake identifications or knowing someone connected to the club. She had come out of the club to smoke a cigarette. She would not give her name but said she was 21. "A lot of times, girls are under age," said the young woman, who was wearing a short white silk miniskirt, a halter top and green eye shadow. "If you come in with people who are promoters, they don't ID you." A promoter had not only allowed her and her friends to jump the line. He had gotten them a cab ride to the club, a table and all the free drinks they wanted, she said. Tuesday night, Moore reportedly got into the Guest House because she knew a deejay there, according to authorities. Others said money or good looks were paramount to getting behind the velvet rope, whether of legal age or not.
It's who you know
A dozen blocks to the south, in the cobblestoned streets of the Meatpacking District, 22-year-old Rita Mariano of Roselle Park said getting into clubs "is not about fake IDs anymore, it's about if you know somebody." Once inside clubs, teenagers have carte blanche, she said. She was speaking from experience. "I started coming when I was 16," she said. "I knew people who ran the clubs," such as China Club, Limelight and Exit. "A lot of underage kids went to those clubs. Everybody was drinking, on drugs and dancing to trance music."
Outside a club with neon lights and pulsing dance music, 22-year-old Ma Savalidze, of Brooklyn said underage kids from New Jersey, often derisively referred to as "bridge and tunnel" by New Yorkers, are among the club's regular clientele. "I was one of those underage girls," she said. "If you dress sexy, it works every time." It was nearly 3:30 a.m. and partyers began emerging from the string of bars and clubs in the Meatpacking District to buy sausages from street vendors and hail cabs. One young man sat on the edge of a sidewalk, hunched over and vomiting. Derek Jeter, the New York Yankees shortstop, left a club and star-struck girls chased him until he ducked into a cab.
Michael, the 19-year-old from Long Island, and his friends were looking for their next stop. They had left their private table at Mood NY a half-hour earlier, the bottle of Grey Goose finished. Tired and tipsy, they argued about whether to take a cab to the train station or pop into another bar in the Meatpacking District. They opted to cut the night short after several of Michael's friends said they had no money, and he decided he had spent enough for one Friday night. Next week would be another matter, though, he said.
"We do this at least once every weekend," he said.
Because they are SCARED of their own children,thats why they don't"take them back"
I am going to say something that may get folks mad at me but here goes:
In the Sixties,lots of the smug,self righteous New Left-SDS types used to irritate the crap out of me with their"we know it all"condemnations of society.
Yet for all their faults,I miss that generation when I compare it to that current crop of pampered hedonistic amoralists who are featured in the article.
At least the Leftists stood for SOMETHING,albiet misguided as hell.These spoiled jackasses believe in nothing but self gratification.
Thats all it would take to keep me away.I wouldn't care how many hot chicks were there.Besides,my bar hopping days are long over.I've been down their path.Guess that makes me an old fart now.
Growing up in Bayonne, heading to "the city" on a Friday night at 10:00PM was nothing unusual in the 80's.
I was home from college as were my friends, we were legal at the time (19 in NYC) and we went dancing and occasionally drank too much. The same rule applied then as now: Go with your friends, Leave with your friends.
Danceateria, Cat Club, CBGBs, whatever they called that church on 6th ave coverted to a night club back then and other places I can't remember. Studio 54 was for people in their 20's and 30's back in the 80's.
I spent a lot of time (and money) on Bleeker Street then too. The Peculier Pub and the Bitter End (RIP) were my favorites.
McSorley's was a popular hang out of mine and I celebrated my 21st birthday there. And no celebration at McSorely's would be complete if we weren't thrown out by Brendan.
And of course the obligatory slice of pizza from Ray's on 11th and 6th before getting on the PATH on 9th St.
We were young, but not immature. Forcing young people to commit crimes in order to enjoy social activities that they will partake in for the rest of their lives is silly. Keeping them out of cars after the bars, I'm fine with.
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whatever they called that church on 6th ave coverted to a night club
That would be the Limelight -- owned by Gatien and implicated in a murder that was turned into the movie Party Monster.
What? You missed Mill's Tavern and David Peel?
I did crazy things too...and I truly Thank GOD everyday that I'm still alive, because I really, really shouldn't be. When you're young, you think you're invincible, that's nothing new. The world is alot more dangerous than when I was tooling around Manhattan drunk in the wee hours of the morning. Although, it was pretty dangerous then too.
*************
Of the last three big stories of this type, that seems to be the common mistake made by the young women who died.
They left without their friends.
give them access to open bars 'over there'
Tomorrow's Democratic voters
You make a good point! But Bloomberg is too busy campaigning for amnesty for illegals, claiming that our country would come to a sudden halt without them. Maybe that's why he has so little time to keep murderers out of bars and off the streets!
You'd think the people at the impound lot would have had teh brains to call the cops. They called an ambulance. I can't believe how creepy, weird, sad and scary that whole story is. I can't believe the perps "girlfriend" was there when he killed the girl and helped dump the body. I mean, I know there is mucho crime, but that whole story, it's like she fell into a twilight zone of mayhem.
I was a sworn to guy in the city for a while. You've no idea the bad things that can and do happen.
I know a lot of my friends who do this kind of, er, stuff...
In a sense, it's a shame my generation brings onto itself. Suffice it to say, I live in a generation where "It's all about me, me, and me." These kids have no common sense--something that's equally apparent on campus and in public.
It's a sad commentary on what our society has devolved into. OTOH, all hope isn't lost. There are people with common sense and who know right from wrong. And there is faith in God above...
And these people are going to be running the country fifteen to thirty years down the road? Utterly appalling.
What's a sworn to guy? Where you a court officer?
LOL!! Your Yiddish is getting better every day...
NYPD. Sworn to Protect and Serve.
Ah! Thank you. And Thank you.
Exactly. You leave with the people you came with. And you ate at Gray's Papayas.
As long as they're not smoking Bloomberg doesn't care.
It's no shame to want to go out and have a good time with friends. Alcohol, for better or worse, is part of that for most adults.
NYC is much safer now than it was when I was a teenager. 18 & 19 year old girls who don't know their limits (and at that age, who does) should go to these clubs with male friends they trust. If they don't have male friends they can trust, then perhaps some introspection on their part would be better than clubbing.
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