PRIDE weekend is underway — and it marks the opening of a new gay club and another three new venues heading to the gayborhood.
Last night The Q, a new multi-level nightlife venue on 8th Ave (just north of W48th Street) opened — with inevitable lines.
The brainchild of Bob Fluet, Frankie Sharp, and Alan Picus, The Q is described by Picus in Getoutmag.com as: “Our four-floor, five-room pleasure dome”.
“Instead of bar hopping through HK, you can simply check your clothes at the door and hop between floors all night, dancing to your favorite DJs, catching a show in the cabaret lounge …”
Sharp says: “You’ll find more burlesque, performance art, Broadway stars popping through, and A-list-headlined comedy nights, and we all love a drag show, so I am excited to give people our brand of a good old-fashioned drag production”.
Meanwhile, Rebar, the renowned Chelsea nightclub operating on W19th Street, is taking over the premises of former Irish pub Perdition at 692 10th Ave, between W48th/49th Streets.
Manhattan Community Board 4 was told via a Zoom meeting that the owners, including Rob Barbero and Michael McGrail, wanted to replicate Rebar’s successful method of operation. There will be a DJ on weekends and some live jazz. A sound engineer said noise proofing was excellent and could not be improved on.
The club’s proposed hours are until 2am on Sundays through Wednesday and 4am from Thursday to Saturday. The bar is expected to open in the fall and compete for business with DBL and Hardware on 10th Avenue.
And what could prove to be a real eye-opening proposition is RedEye at W41st Street and 9th Avenue near the Port Authority.
During daylight hours it will be a haunt for coffee lovers and after dark the owners promise it will turn into a wild venue and a space devoted to performances and artists of all kinds.
In an interview with Instinct Magazine, two of the owners, Taylor Shubert and Sam Benedict, said RedEye would also include a television studio “to capture the magic of NYC nightlife and share it with as wide an audience as possible”.
Benedict says: “We’re all huge fans of drag … like huge, but we’re not here to put on the same shows you can see at other bars. We want to give all of our favorite queens an opportunity to do something they can’t do (for whatever reason) up the block.”
And the fourth spot is … The Spot, which got the go-ahead after a license was finally granted for the venue. Community concerns voiced during the application process had delayed the project. Ted Arenas from Rise Bar and his partner John Blair will open the bar in the former Lansdowne Road location on 10th Avenue between W43/44th Street.
The newcomers will go some way towards replacing the many gay bars that closed in Hell’s Kitchen during the pandemic. They include POSH, Vodka Soda Bottoms Up, 9th Avenue Saloon and Therapy.