BlackBook

On the town with the party promoter

With Spring comes a veritable shift in nightlife. Not only are rooftops reopening and patios getting their shine on, but people start feeling inspired to jumpstart their social life and there are plenty of new offerings vying to be the jumper cables. Simonez makes a jump to Pravda on Wednesday nights (an attendees sardonic review: "Like the Vanity Fair Oscar party combined with being backstage at Woodstock"), and Mike has started using his Apartment to shoot rap videos. Meanwhile, all wait with baited breath to see what will become of the old Nells/new Scott and Richie spot, which is set to open next month.

Lowdown: This is Manhattanites' Friday night. Whipped has moved to Baddies, the hipster alcoholics moving closer to their hipster roots. Hot Now: ● CV (Lower East Side) - Something has finally been done with the over-saturated spot formerly known as 105 Rivington. Let's see how long this minor revamp will last. ● BEast(Chinatown) - Main Man, Ryan McGinley's night of debauchery, is still in swing. Expect a Misshape or two, Sophia Lamar, and a band of insiders. ● Coffee Shop (Union Square) - One of the true day clubs, chocked full of promoters networking via text message; the basement named USL will be making random appearances throughout the week. Avenue, Boom Boom Room and 1Oak are still great standbys for good times, while the down-belows like Macao's basement opium den, is also great. ● Baddies (West Village) - The former Butter party was screwed with until it finally flew the coop to the basement bar of Kingswood. Resident hipster DJs Matt & Maia draw out big name fashion folks like Alexander Wang and the Ronsons.

Well that was fast. Mardi Gras is fin, and most New Yorkers were too distracted or bleary-eyed from the long weekend to get truly fat on Fat Tuesday. Now Lent is here and people have rushed into giving things up and fasting and otherwise resorting to being good and decent people for the next 40 days. What does this mean for New York nightlife? Judging from the long lists of places to-go and people to-see, I'd say not much. This week we've got Brooklynites saying Bryant Park what? as they host a fashion week(end) of their own, while Oak takes it upon itself to get its own magazine credits by releasing another issue of their popular Oak.a.zine fashion rag. Hotel Rivington tries out a new party with the old dogs from Stereo, people flood Rose Bar to see if they can't shmooze their way into Nur Khan's new Kenmare, StyleCaster hits up Goldbar and free booze tries its damnedest to revive Happy Endings.

"We're trying to keep it beachy but not too homeless-looking," stylist Dennis Lanni said about the hair at Lacoste during last February's Fall Fashion Week. As Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week 2010 kicks off today, alongside Blizzard Week 2010, the fashionistas descending upon Bryant Park can only hope to walk that fine line themselves. You may end up on the side of homeless-looking, lest you have your own personal umbrella holder, Jimmy Choo buffer and car service to the tents, but that doesn't mean you should stay away. Stuff your feet into your LL Bean waterproof blizzard-booties and hit up the after parties. Because who needs the shows when you have free booze? If you're the fashion-y type, but not exactly the fashion show type, the Barneys Warehouse sale starts this week. If you couldn't give a hoot about fashion week, free booze or warehouse sales, there are a few good shows to snow-shoe your way to. For shows of a different kind, head up to Bryan Park and watch show-goers slip and eat it in their couture. Lord knows I might be one of them.

Socials and fashionistas might be fasting in prep for Fashion Week, but we take the side of Ernest Hemingway, who said “Drinking is a way of ending the day." This week, with the Superbowl taking over pubs, Steve Lewis is taking over Lit for birthday party and drinkers taking over the MoMa for First Thursdays, there are plenty of ways to end the day well. If you aren't in the mood for hooch, there are events for talking about alcohol, a giant Sleepover party and cozy cupcake affairs.

Wednesday night, André Balazs accepted a small green KidRobot monster. There's nothing quite like an awards ceremony to inject a little energy into nightlife, and the gracious Balazs excitedly accepting on behalf of his Standard Hotel promised energy is on the upswing. Just being in the same room as nightlifers like Six Six Sick and Harley & Cassie invigorated my addiction to the night, and I'm not the only one.

An unassuming tourist type at an unassuming football bar tells me this: "New York restaurants are crazy! There's a club in every basement!" I nod my head. He means RdV, the bass-thumping club below Bagatelle. "No," says the unassuming tourist, "We were in some East Village pizza restaurant or something!" Jesus, it can be tough keeping up with the NYC Jones. There seems to be tons of hidden gems that try to stay away from the people like me who can write about them, Twitter about them, Facebook about them, and ultimately ruin them. Some things are worth keeping a secret, but when the party is in the basement of Coffee Shop or some media lunch spot that regularly gets off on decent press, it's easy to broadcast. Some other things will remain a mystery, until I can fully understand if it's an actual basement party or simply a couple of bus boys getting high between shifts.

As the holidays near, it's fun to roll the dice on what former hotspot will have a revival, or what invitees may finally get a glimpse of the most exclusive space by way of special event invitation. This week alone the The Bowery Hotel had a major resurgence, proving it's a party player by hosting the annual Humane Society’s Cool vs. Cruel benefit, back-to-back with tonight's Art Rocks! event. Same with the six-thousand-foot "local hang'" -- The Ainsworth -- which was ground zero for Stylecaster's Short Films Premiere Party. Sienna and Savannah Miller hosted a dinner to celebrate their spring 2010 collection at the Royalton (not exactly the downtown scene we'd imagined for them). Party palaces also revive with extreme makeovers' the closed 105 Rivington space -- a splinter off of the Rivington Hotel -- is getting a redux. It will be called CV, and it had a little show-and-tell this past Tuesday. All in all, the holiday times bring a little nightlife cheer in the form of new beginnings at old places, reminding people how awesome some of our nighttime landmarks can be.

Once again, the landscape of nightlife is a'changing. Sometimes, you have to stir up the water to catch a few fish, which is exactly what happened to us. East Village Monday-night favorite Le Souk lost its liquor license, forcing patrons to take their business to Le Souk Harem, but it's the neighborhood that's the real loser. Wandering aimlessly in search of something new and good on Sunday night, we found a new party at White Slab Palace. Places we'd long since wrote off somehow hit the spot if not filled the void. An object lesson on wandering outside your comfort zone.