Dispatch

Power and drugs collide behind the velvet rope in New York City

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Every 10 years or so, you hear the phrase, “New York is dead!” People are always looking to declare that the Big Apple has lost its bite. However, that’s just not true. “Power,” the upcoming NYC-based drama from Starz, tells a Gotham tale full of intrigue — both uptown and downtown. In every neighborhood of New York City, salacious and scandalous possibilities abound in ordinary bars and fancy clubs alike.

Check out The Power Playlist on Spotify, exclusively for “Power.” 

Patrons escape their daily lives and slip into a parallel universe that can often straddle the line between ritzy glamour and the harsh realities of drugs. We went out to uncover some of these stories from behind the velvet rope, as told by bartenders, club owners and DJs, the ones who have truly seen it all.
A longtime bar owner in Manhattan’s East Village describes an average night as:
“A few people — musicians, artists — nodding off on heroin while a coke dealer had sex for a bag in the bathroom. In another corner, the local Bloods factions could be chopping it up with the vice detectives. Neither side giving intel. It’s that mix of downtown models, murderers, criminals, ad execs, editors and cops that kept the peace. You need that in a good New York bar.”

Meanwhile, the co-owner of a lounge on Williamsburg’s trendy South Side witnesses equally intriguing characters:

“One a busy Friday night, a tall Latino guy walks into my place alone. He’s wearing a three-piece, lime green suit — matching hat, green shoes and tie. I ask him if he wants a table, he says he just wants a drink at the bar, so I show him to a seat. He asks if we have Bacardi Rum; I explain we don’t. He steps back and says proudly, ‘Tonight is my niece’s quinceañera, that’s why I dress like this. But you know I like to look good for the ladies.’ He continues: ‘But not everyone is into the ladies, you know? My son? He’s a transsexual! He wants to be a girl!’ He looks me hard in the eye. ‘But I don’t care!’ He slaps me on the arm. ‘We all gotta do what’s right for us. I don’t have no problem with doin’ what you gotta do.’ At this point, I’m just trying to figure out how crazy this guy really is. ‘When I was on the inside,’ he says, ‘I used to do what I had to do. And now, you have to pay if you want to be with me. A thousand dollars sometimes.’ Then he puts his hand on my shoulder and says, ‘But you seem like a good guy. I’ll only charge you 200.’ I told him to get the hell out of my bar.”
And, of course, there’s the music scene. An in-demand DJ saw an inexperienced band make a bit of a party faux pas:
“I was working a show at a Brooklyn venue. Some of these guys in the band were supposed to take the stage and were stalling. We went backstage to tell them to get on and they were doing lines of coke off a drum. They were all like, ‘Yeah, yeah, hold on, let me finish these lines fist’ — trying to be cool in front of the busted girls that were surrounding them. I wanted to tell them that every drummer who has ever played at this venue has used drum as part of the house kit; every drummer has sweat and bled on that drum. But I didn’t. Those guys probably got all sorts of nasty s— up their nose.” It’s not all grit and grime, though.

Another DJ told us that he’s had to fight off rich Young Turks looking to turn him into a human jukebox: “I was DJing at a club one night and this guy comes up to me and tells me that he’ll give me $1,000 if I put on ‘Wrecking Ball’ by Miley Cyrus immediately. I told him no. And I still feel good about it.”

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