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http://usj.sagepub.com/content/48/16/3449The online version of this article can be found at:
DOI: 10.1177/0042098011400772
2011 48: 3449 originally published online 11 April 2011Urban StudLaam Hae
Nightlife in New York CityDilemmas of the Nightlife Fix : Post-industrialisation and the Gentrification of
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48(16) 34493465, December 2011
0042-0980 Prit/1360-063X Olie 2011 Urb Studies Jourl Limited
DOI: 10.1177/0042098011400772
Laam Hae is i te Deprtmet o Politicl Sciece, York Uiversity, S671 Ross, 4700 Keele Street,Toroto, Otrio, M3J1P3, Cd. E-mil: [email protected].
Dilemmas o the Nightlie Fix:Post-industrialisation and theGentriication o Nightlie inNew York CityLaam Hae
[Paper first received, June 2009; in final form, November 2010]
Abstract
In recent years, nightlife has been increasingly recognised as an important resourcefor the enhancement of the post-industrial profile of the city and for the promotionof gentrification in derelict neighbourhoods. It projects an image of a vibrant socialand cultural life, considered particularly appealing to the young professional labourforce of post-industrial sectors, the members of whom are particularly apt to considermoving to the city. However, the advocates of this nightlife fix thesis ignore tensions
that have emerged between residents in gentrifying neighbourhoods and nightlifebusinesses due to the nuisance effects of the latter. Using the example of New YorkCity, this paper examines how conflicts over nightlife in gentrifying neighbourhoodshave resulted in the gentrification of nightlife and have thus transformed the natureof the citys nightlife itself.
as being responsible for the hipification of theneighbourhood, a process that has brought
with itself condominium apartments andboutiques for new residents, known often asyuppies. By helping to create a hipster vibethrough the encouragement of nightlife busi-nesses,Misrahi had created fertile ground forgentrification in a neighbourhood that hadnot yet attracted the attentions of real estatedevelopers.
A New York Timesarticle in June 2007 featuredthe story of Sion Misrahi, a developer-
cum-landlord of several buildings in the LowerEast Side of New York City (Salkin, 2007). Inthe mid 1990s, he rented out 18 vacant store-fronts on one street to bars, restaurants andcounter-cultural performance clubs, which heexpected to bring in the hipsters and changethe neighborhood. Indeed, within a decade,Misrahi and other similar landlords were cited
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Nightlife establishments often constitutean important foundation for the rekindlingof depressed property markets in derelictneighbourhoods by helping to generate an
atmosphere of lively urban sociality. In par-ticular, nightlife establishments associated withinner-city sub-cultures, such as undergroundmusic/performance clubs, add a particular aurato the neighbourhoods, often leading to hipstergentrification. However, it has simultaneouslybeen observed that, once gentrification settlesin, nightlife businesses have been pushed outof the very neighbourhoods that they helpedto market as interesting to outsiders. Nightlifebusinesses in the Lower East Side, Misrahisneighbourhood, for example, have followedthis trajectory. This paper details this contra-dictory process, what I call the gentrificationwith and against nightlife, in several neigh-bourhoods of New York City (NYC). I examinediscourses and regulatory practices (especiallyzoning regulations) introduced by the munici-pal government to discipline nightlife following
the growing protests of residents against night-life, while setting them in relief against ironicalofficial efforts to market nightlife as a symbolof urban vibrancy to tourists and middle-classprofessionals. I also detail the complex processin which this contradictory approach, togetherwith rising property values and the tastesof newly transplanted yuppie populations,has reshaped nightlife into a cluster of moreupmarket or corporate establishments, while
marginalising underfunded clubs that are oftenrelated to alternative and experimental sub-cultures. This transformation also signifies that,in post-industrialising and gentrifying cities,certain nightlife cultures are more valorisedthan others and that cities are increasingly leftwith a narrowing scope of nightlife cultures.
Gentrifcation, Post-
industrialisation and theNightlie Fix
The move to promote the aesthetic and cul-tural identities of cities has been intimately
related to these cities efforts to deal withthe exigencies of the post-industrialisationof their economies, primarily in Westerncities (Harvey, 1989; Ley, 1996), but increas-
ingly also in non-Western cities (Kanai andOrtega-Alczar, 2009; Yeoh, 2005). This isbecause these aesthetics, embodied in sub-cultural spaces or mosaics of ethnic enclaves,can be commodified as unique urban touristattractions. It is also the case that what Florida(2004) terms the creative class(young)professionals in post-industrial, knowledge-based businesses such as dotcom businesses,finance, insurance, real-estate, media, adver-tising and other high-end service businessesthat municipalities have courted in order toreverse their cities economic decline andenhance their global competitivenessroutinely demand infrastructure for qualitycultural consumption in cities they inhabit(Ley, 1996), often in the form of interestingand authentic sub-cultural spaces (Zukin,2010). This is related to the cosmopolitan
sensibility and sub-cultural experience thatthese educated young professionals havedeveloped in relation to their consumptionpatterns, which have become an essentialcomponent of their cultural capital (Grazian,2003). Florida (2004, p. 225), the originatorof paradigms of the creative class and thecreative city, maintains that a vibrant night-life is one component of the mix of lifestyleoptions that municipal governments should
offer to make cities appealing to the crea-tive class. Currid (2007), another championof these paradigms, further underlines theimportance of nightlife businesses like bars,lounges and dance clubs, as these sites providespaces where young urban creatives in fash-ion, advertising and music industries casuallyhang out, exchange information and forminformal social networks which, she argues,
contributes to the creative cultural economyof the city.Despite the popularity of the creative class
thesis in North America, a nightlife fix tocontemporary urban economies has in fact
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been more prominently sought in Britain(Heath, 1997; Lovatt and OConnor, 1995).In alignment with neo-liberal trends, theUK central government legislated a series
of deregulatory measures for nightlife; andmunicipal governments, in conjunctionwith city councillors, regeneration agenciesand licensing boards, have followed suit.These measures have included an extensionof licensing hours, the release of restrictionson numbers of permitted nightlife establish-ments in particular areas and the standardi-sation of licensing processes (Talbot 2006,p. 160). Such measures were expected toencourage nightlife as an economic booster,particularly in impoverished cities such asManchester, Leeds and Newcastle, as facilita-tors of vibrant new images for these cities andas important catalysts for neighbourhoodgentrification projects.
The promotion of nightlife businesses has,however, taken a contradictory trajectory.Concerned voices have been raised to under-
score how deregulatory policies, which somehave seen as a product of aggressive lobbiesof corporate night-time businesses (Hadfield,2008), would increase the risks and nuisancesassociated with nightlife, such as alcohol-/drug-related violence, vandalism, crowdingand noise (Hadfield, 2006). Reflecting theseconcerns, the terms that define a vibrantnightlife have undergone a re-evaluationin favour of forms of nightlife that do not
interfere with the quality of life of gentrifyingneighbourhoods. In this re-evaluation, newforms of social and cultural differentiation(Talbot, 2006, p. 160) have come into being asa way to define what are acceptable/unaccept-able and orderly/disorderly premises. Theseforms of differentiation have often overlappedwith the class (Chatterton and Hollands,2002) or racial and ethnic composition of
these venues (Talbot, 2004, 2006). In Talbotscase study (2006, p. 164), she observed thatamong key authority figures in a licensingregime, the perceived distinction betweenorderly and disorderly venues was often
layered with a venues commercial viabilityor business competence. Profitable venues,such as large chains or syndicate companiesthat run dance bars catering to a young White
contingent (often screening out non-Whitepatrons, using a variety of practices), wereviewed as equipped with qualities necessaryfor maintaining order. In contrast, venuescatering to Afro-Caribbean patrons weregenerally regarded as lacking these qualitiesand therefore associated with disorder. This,combined with the general fear among young,White, professionals of the venues patronisedby Afro-Caribbean contingent, and high rentsresulting from gentrification that these venueshave been unable to afford, have led to themarginalisation of Afro-Caribbean venues.
Talbot (2006, p. 159) argues that suchmarginalisation has led to a sub-culturalclosure, as forms of wilder, experimental andculturally diverse nightlife are increasinglypurged out of gentrifying neighbourhoodsand replaced by gentrified forms of nightlife
(see also Hadfield, 2006; Chatterton andHollands, 2002). In the gentrified streetscapesthat seemingly represent the ideal of authenticmixed-use neighbourhoods (Zukin, 2010),the wilder version of nightlife often onlyremains as an image, as a simulacrum ofthe neighbourhoods sub-cultural history,wherein communities that produced thiswilder nightlife and its spaces cease to exist.This shows how Floridas creative city type
of policy development can ironically turndestructive towards creative sub-cultural for-mations in cities. This further casts a crucialquestion about changing social and culturallife in contemporary post-industrial cities, ascitizens access to diverse and experimentalurban sub-cultures becomes increasinglylimited. The analysis of such transformationsof nightlife under gentrification is, therefore, avaluable extension of other relevant researchthat has brought to light the marginalisationof certain populations under gentrification,such as homeless people (MacLeod, 2002;Smith, 1996), together with the implications
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of such marginalisation for the decliningprinciple of the right to the city (Lefebvre,1996; Mitchell, 2003; also see Hae (2011) forhow the intensification of the regulation of
social dancing in nightlife venues has debili-tated the right to the city).
In NYC, the implications of the gentrifica-tion of nightlife for the right to the city areequally deleterious and the contradictionsrelated to the promotion of the creative cityare also palpable. Starting in the mid 1970s,when the gentrification of abandoned inner-city areas began, nightlife regulations havebecome increasingly tight. In the period before1990, the tightening of regulations oftenfocused on discos, which were at the centreof the rallying cries of residents.1 Beginningroughly in 1990, however, a broader spectrumof nightlife (beyond discos) became the tar-get of governmental crackdown and a seriesof new legal initiatives, in particular zoningamendments that drastically diminishedplanning zones in which nightlife businesses
could legally locate, were implemented toprevent neighbourhood conflicts over night-life (see Table 1). Both state and municipal
governments also empowered residentialcommunities so that the latter could moreeffectively control nightlife businesses in theirneighbourhoods. This period further saw the
proliferation of official and popular discoursesthat had the effect of disciplining nightlifeto take certain directions. Throughout thishistory, underfinanced nightlife venues thatoften incubated experimental and creative,but less lucrative, subcultures have been dis-appearing, replaced by up-market/corporatebusinessesa process similar to sub-culturalclosure.2 The governing of nightlife in thisway, however, has ironically been coupledwith persistent governmental campaigns touse nightlife in tourism marketing campaigns(although this nightlife image-based cam-paigning was not as vigorous as that observedin some British cities).
Gentrification in each neighbourhoodhas taken on locally idiosyncratic patterns,but it has also shown a similar pattern ofgentrification with and against nightlife.
That is, nightlife contributed as a catalystfor gentrification, only to be inculpated asneighbourhood annoyances when gentry
Table 1. history o itlie reultios i ne York City
Pre-1990 Post-1990
Institutions and laws Increasing calls among public
officials for new nightliferegulations to control nightlife
New legal and institutional fixes to
nightlife problemsZoning amendments and resultant
decrease of nightlife-legal zonesDiscourses of disciplining
nightlife
Targets of nightlife regulations Focus on (mega) discos Broadening scope of businesses
Residential communities Increasing outcry against
neighbouring nightlifebusinesses
Empowered to intervene in
nightlife licensing process
Nightlife business owners Individualised reactions to
tightening regulations
Mobilisation among nightlife
actors; conflicts between them
Nightlife cultures Intensification of uptownisation.
Gentrification with andagainst nightlife
Replicated in each neighbourhood.
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moved into the neighbourhood. This proc-ess has also involved complicated conflictsbetween different interest-groups existingbeyond the anti-nightlife vs pro-nightlife
binary (i.e. conflicts between different sectorsof cultural creatives, or nightlife sectors) dueto discord among their interests implicatedin the gentrification process.
Post-industrialisation andNightlie Dilemmas: The 1970sthrough early 1980s
In the 1970s, in the midst of a particularlysevere economic crisis, NYCs nightlife,flourishing in abandoned neighbourhoods,projected images of disorder, decline anddangerous cultural liberalism (Greenberg,2008).3 Despite the moral panic over nightlife,municipal regulations of nightlife businesseswere lax because the city lacked enforcementfunds and personnel due to the financialcrisis (Chevigny, 1991). A sympathetic view
existed towards nightlife businesses, too, asthey were seen as an important part of sociallife and a means of keeping roots in shakycommunities struck down by the recessionand neighbourhood dereliction (Narvaez,1976, p.1, p. 46). They were also viewed asone of the few economic resources available tothe city and as a source of revenues for land-lords in derelict neighbourhoods at a time ofebbing investment opportunities. The zealous
leasing-out of properties in Times Square todiscotheques in the late 1970s was a case inpoint (Horsley, 1978).
Nightlife in the SoHo and NoHo neigh-bourhoods also enjoyed the relaxed regulatoryenvironment at that time. These neighbour-hoods had primarily been manufacturingzones, but as they were abandoned throughdeindustrialisation in the 1950s and 1960s,
poor artists, underground dance partiers andexperimental jazz musicians (sometimes witha creative network between these three) livedand worked there in the 1960s through the
1970s, illegally but with the acquiescence oflandlords. These included David Mancuso,who held an underground party, Loft, inNoHo, which became the birthplace of disco.
In the 1960s, artists groups, in alliance withmiddle-class activists, successfully stopped thecity governments plan to demolish historicalcast-iron buildings in these neighbourhoodsand, in the early 1970s, they successfullypressured the government to make availableaffordable residences for artists there, too. Thepresence of artists in these neighbourhoodshelped to revalorise the local property marketand later attracted the real estate capital whichsuccessfully converted stocks of lofts into up-market residences, by utilising zoning vari-ances and tax benefits from the municipality.Since then, these neighbourhoods have beenreshaped, made up of upmarket residenceslined with galleries and boutiques. And, withthe sharp increase in property values, and themunicipalitys withdrawal of a housing sub-sidy that once helped to anchor impecunious
artists in these neighbourhoods, artists weredisplaced from them as of the early 1980s(Zukin, 1982). This process exemplified thevulnerability of the arts to market exploita-tion, despite the apparent agency of arts toengender a positive use value in derelict builtenvironments.
The displacement of artists in these neigh-bourhoods was, however, also preceded bythat of nightlife. In the early to mid 1970s,
underground parties in these neighbour-hoods, including the Loft, were contestedby an alliance of middle-class transplantsand artists organisations that were seekingto establish the areas identities as artisticmixed-use communities with a reformistmiddle-class character (Aletti, 1975). Theseconstituents also successfully pressured theCity Planning Commission (CPC) to make
zoning modifications in 1976 that wouldban the opening of noisy and offensivelarge nightlife establishments in these neigh-bourhoods (Fowler, 1976; interview, Ken
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Bergen, CPC staff planner, 11 March 2005).Throughout this process, discos and under-ground dance parties were primarily framedas undesirable commerce or drug-infested
nuisances that were anathema to the neigh-bourhoods artistic character. This exemplifieshow different types of arts and cultural com-merce are valorised differently in the culturalpolitics of gentrification and are even pitchedagainst one another in their struggles overurban space. In this struggle, the wilder ilkpave the way for those who conform to thetaste economy of the gentry and the qualityof life of a gentrifying locale.
The value of nightlife was, however, notentirely dismissed. The 1970s disco boomwas seen as one of the signifiers and driv-ers of the post-industrialisation of the cityseconomy (Lawrence, 2003, p. 182), the processin which businesses related to the provision ofbusiness services and consumption of enter-tainment and urban culture, were prioritisedover the production of manufactured goods,
that the municipality sought to implementin order to overcome the recession (for thepost-industrialisation of NYC, see Fleetwood,1979; Savitch, 1988; Schuerman, 2007). Manydiscotheques and underground parties werealso located in former manufacturing districtsor run-down working class neighbourhoods(interview, a club owner and DJ in the 1980s,23 August 2006), literally replacing industriallandscapes with their own and thus adding
to the post-industrial current in the city.Nightlife actors chose to locate in such areasprimarily to cash in on cheap rents and largeloft spaces, a phenomenon that convergedwith the interests of landlords who could notfind other tenants for their derelict buildings.
The citys marketing strategy in the 1970salso often spotlighted the citys flourishingnightlife (Greenberg, 2008, pp. 207211).
The Broadway theatres and the nightscapesof Times Square, as well as sophisticateddining and live music experiences, prevailedin the marketing of the citys nightlife. Yet
the wilder part of nightlife, repackaged witha chic touch, was promoted as iconic of therich diversity and the cultural vanguards ofNYC. In one promotional campaign in 1978,
Studio 54 was featured with the disco song I NY and with the message that hundredsof colorful and interesting people [keep] NewYork alive at night (Greenberg, 2008, p. 210).In 1978, during Disco Week, Mayor Ed Kochalso stressed in a speech that disco symbolisesa more harmonious fellowship towards allcreeds and races which was, he meant, whatNew York was all about (Lawrence, 2003,p. 308).
Residential communities, On the otherhand, suffered from the raving disco nightscene (Horsley, 1978) and controlling disco-related nuisancesnoise and crowding atnightbecame a pressing concern for publicofficials. The CPC called for amendmentsto the cabaret lawa zoning and licensingregulation applied to cabarets.4 As the citywas increasingly pulling out of the reces-
sion, in the early 1980s, the Department ofConsumer Affairs (DCA) was given the fundsand authority to step up nightlife regulation.The liabilities that business owners incurredwhen they violated regulations also grew.The City Councils Consumer ProtectionCommittee also proposed a bill that wouldrequire nightlife establishments generatingloud noise to be soundproofed, noting thatthis type of law had become urgent, as the
distinction between commercial and residen-tial areas had been blurred [due to gentrifica-tion in the city] (Kennedy, 1983). Nightlifebusiness owners voiced that the permissiveatmosphere that characterised the 1970s waswaning (Dunlap, 1983). Rents continued toincrease rapidly city-wide, putting heavierstrains on nightlife businesses; there was a 35per cent reported increase in rents city-wide
over the period 198385 and those ownerswhose leases expired in that period reportedaverage increases of 66 per cent (Chevigny,1991, p. 98). Media reports on conflicts over
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discos in places like TriBeCa, that were nowexperiencing soaring real estate prices causedby gentrification, continued (Landis, 1983).
Nightlie and Gentrifcation: Midto Late 1980s
According to Mele (2000), the gentrificationof the East Village (then called the LowerEast Side) explicitly hinged on the aestheticambience that counter-cultural punk musi-cians and bohemian artists had created inthe neighbourhoods derelict landscapes.Clubs here in the 1960s and 1970s were thecore sites where these artists produced andshowcased alternative arts, music, dance andperformance. In the early 1980s, these art-ists entered into the mainstream art marketand, subsequently, as the East Village stylecaught the attention of the popular media, theneighbourhood rose as a potentially desirablehabitat with an interesting lifestyle to offer.This elicited the attentions of the real estate
developers and since then the neighbourhoodexperienced rapid gentrification.5 The rede-velopment of the neighbourhood proceeded,then, as the actual counter-cultural spacesthat originally popularised East Village styledisappeared from the neighbourhood, to theextent that a New York Timesarticle (Gross,1985) surmised that the party seems to beover in the neighbourhood. The tighteningadministrative grip on nightlife businesses
and exploding real estate values contributedto the decline of music/dance clubs, especiallythe very clubs that founded the counter-cultural East Village ethos. Clubs eitherclosed their businesses, or removed fromtheir programmes live music performancesor social dancing, which would have madethem vulnerable to the stricter enforcementsof the cabaret law.
The East Village counter-cultures, havingfaded away, now remained as a simulacrum,as an image projected onto the upmarketbars, restaurants and boutique shops of the
areas new consumer landscape. Clearly,municipal officials were aware that clubs inthis neighbourhood helped to breathe life intoonce-desolate streets, ultimately leading to the
gentrification of the area (Gross, 1985). Thiswas, however, rarely translated into aware-ness of the cultural importance of clubs andthe need for institutional protection of themagainst prohibitive rent markets. Urging onthe part of civil society for the protection ofthese clubs was also limited, in contrast tothe committed middle-class activism thatpressured the municipality to legalise thesquatting of artists in SoHo lofts in the 1960s.
The gentrification of the Flatiron District inManhattan followed a similar pattern of gen-trification with and against nightlife. Fromthe mid 1970s, poor photographers movedinto abandoned lofts in the neighbourhood,which had been a manufacturing zone com-bined with heavy commercial zones. In theearly 1980s, the neighbourhood gentrified, thezoning code for the neighbourhood chang-
ing to legalise the entry of more residentialdevelopment. The most important factor forgentrification in this neighbourhood, it wasreported, was nightclubs and restaurants thathad moved into the area before gentrifica-tion kicked in. Realtors opined that nightlifebusinesses had brought in excitement andglamour and that the young, night-timecrowds granted the neighbourhood theprestige that usually presages gentrification
(Hawkins, 1988). By the late 1980s, how-ever, the neighbourhood became anotherbattlefield over nightlife businesses (Dunlap,1988). Nightlife establishments, the presenceof which had raised the bar of cultural capitalin the neighbourhood, were now seen as aprime obstacle, causing the devaluation ofproperty values.6
In the mid to late-1980s, it was also widely
observed that the downtown nightlife becameuptownised, which impelled one club critic towrite about The death of downtown (Musto,1987; see also Mele, 2000, p. 233). Musto
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opined that creative energies of downtownclubs were no longer felt in the uptownisednew club scene, where the dominant crowdwas now new affluent young Americans,
including Wall Street workers who were moreinterested in paying for the spectacle of glitzyclubs than creative experimentation withalternative sub-cultures. The producers of
Figure 1. Zoi coiurtios o socil dci busiesses, 1978.
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underground cultures were largely alienatedfrom, or were co-opted into these new envi-rons. The downtown network that used toconnect clubs with independent recording
studios and specialty record stores was alsoeroding due to rising rent and shrinkingdemand (Fikentscher, 2000). Despite thistransformation in the nightlife scene, however,
Figure 2. Zoi coiurtios o socil dci busiesses, ter 1990.
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my interviewees generally recounted that asizeable swathe of NYC in this period was stillavailable in which to run a new club or party,and creative energies still abounded to venture
to experiment cultural transgression. Yet, withnew regulations legislated at the beginning ofthe 1990s, these possibilities became severelyrestrained.
Legal Fixes to Nightlie Dilemmas:The Late 1980s to the Mid 1990s
Tightened enforcement by the authoritieswas particularly severe on small live jazzclubs that were still categorised as cabarets(see endnote 4). The terms of the cabaret lawwere, however, transformed when in 1989musicians successfully challenged the con-stitutionality of the cabaret law for violatingthe First Amendment.7 After this defeat, theCPC revised the cabaret zoning law in 1990 sothat the definition of cabarets was changedto refer mainly to nightlife businesses that
offer social dancing together with drinks/meals, but not live music businesses. Underthis amendment, many of the existing zonesas-of-right for social dancing businesses werechanged to ones in which these businesseswould have to meet strict special permitsrequirements (CPC, 1989).8 These neighbour-hoods included TriBeCa, some parts of theEast Village and the Lower East Side, and theFlatiron District (compare the size of as-of-
right zones for social dance venues between1978 and 1990 in Figures 1 and 2) and, inSoHo and NoHo, the CPC made the specialpermits requirements stricter than before.City planners justified this amendment bypointing out that discos had been nuisancesto these neighbourhoods (interview, KenBergen, CPC staff planner, 11 March 2005).9These neighbourhoods had undergone palpa-
ble gentrification by this time (see Hackworth,2007; Zukin, 2010), so the cabaret law rezon-ing was also seen as an effort on the part ofthe CPC to benefit gentry by effectively zoning
out discos from these neighbourhoods(interview, New York Nightlife Association(NYNA) representative, 14 January 2005).The legal fix to the nightlife dilemma came in
the form of zoning amendments, so to speak.Despite the 1990 cabaret law zoning amend-
ment and the recession in the late 1980s andearly 1990s that temporarily caused gentri-fication in the city to slow down, nightlifeconflicts continued to grow. A wider range ofnightlife businesses, including bars, loungesand restaurants, also became the object ofpublic outcry in gentrifying neighbourhoods.The municipal government continued to craftlegal fixes, including a new rule that strength-ened the power of Community Boards (CBs)in vetoing cabaret licence applications in theirneighbourhoods (Nieves, 1990). Incessantpetitions on the part of residents to the StateLiquor Authority (SLA) also led to a billempowering CBs to petition to restrict thenumber of businesses with liquor licencesin neighbourhoods already deemed over-
crowded with nightlife businesses (Howe,1993). In addition, both municipal govern-ment and the SLA increased the responsibili-ties of business owners for maintaining orderoutside as well as inside clubs (Glaberson,1990; Howe, 1993).
This tightened regulatory environmentpressured business owners to negotiate termsof operation. Business managers started toattend CB meetings and looked for ways
to work with resident neighbours (Howe,1992). Furthermore, they changed the contentof the parties they hosted, in order to drawan older, more affluent crowd (Freitag, 1990).Some even marketed themselves as beingtransformed into spaces that were upscaleand regularly filled with young hip kids andmodels and sought to get rid of parties asso-ciated with violent crowds, such as hip hop
and reggae parties (Glaberson, 1990). In otherwords, the solution to neighbourhood conflictssought by business owners involved modify-ing the economic and racial constituents of
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patronsa phenomenon that became morecommon in the nightlife scene throughout the1990s (interview, NY-based DJ, 22 December2009). This also shows how gentrification
and the subsequent neighbourhood conflictsover nightlife have led to what Talbot callssub-cultural closure, as these processes com-pelled the nightlife scene to bowdlerise wilderparts of itself, the parts more related to zany,creative and experimental sub-cultures (oftenalso associated with racial/ethnic minoritycommunities) and transform themselves intomore gentrified establishments catering toupmarket boulevardiers.
Crackdown on Nightlie: From theMid 1990s to the Early 2000s
The standoff between distressed residentsand nightlife businesses entered a new phaseduring Mayor Rudy Giulianis administration(19942001). Giulianis authoritarian qualityof life policing, which was closely affiliated with
his neo-liberal policies, brought about city-widecontroversies over the legitimacy of such polic-ing (McArdle and Erzen, 2001). This period wasalso characterised by an assertive municipalpromotion of gentrification projects, with thehelp of which gentrification was intensified andextended to places that did not significantlyexperience gentrification in the 1980s: placessuch as the Lower East Side, Clinton, Manhattan
Valley in the Upper West Side, West Chelsea andWilliamsburg (Freeman and Braconi, 2004;Hackworth, 2007; Zukin, 2010).10
Nightlife policing by the municipality inthis period became disproportionately puni-tive. At the centre of nightlife policing lay aTask Force comprised of city agents from eachdepartment involved in nightlife inspections,a body which the municipal government cre-ated in 1995 to overcome the obstacles posed
by the bureaucratic complexity involved innightlife inspection (Farber, 1995). The TaskForce conducted nightlife inspections, visitingbusinesses without prior notice, frequently
on Friday or Saturday nights, disturbingbusinesses at their peak times. When the TaskForce visited businesses, tickets were oftenissued based upon punctilious interpretations
of lawsfor example, an ice scoop illegallytouching an ice cubeunrelated to the noisesor crowding that residents complained about,which was ostensibly what brought the TaskForce in (Bumiller, 1996; Rothman, 1999).The Task Force also strictly interpreted socialdancing, to the point that, if more thanthree people were discovered to be movingrhythmically together in establishments notlicensed as cabarets, this was construed tobe a violation of the cabaret law. Under theCPCs rewriting of the cabaret zoning lawin 1990, a large portion of the commercialzones where people could drink became notas-of-right for social dancing, so any casualrhythmic movement in music clubs, loungesor bars became a violation. Music/dance clubsin the rapidly gentrifying Lower East Side andin the East Village were particularly hard hit
by this crackdown, as there were few streetsin this neighbourhood that were as-of-rightfor social dancing (LeDuff, 1996).
The inspections by the Task Force lednightlife establishments to sense that theCitys crackdown was being carried out forthe purpose of harassing nightlife businesses,rather than to secure public wellbeing andsafety (interview, the NYNA representative,14 January 2005). The Deputy Mayor, who
was in charge of the Task Force, denied this,stating that the city valued its nightlife busi-nesses, but nonetheless adding the following
My message to these owners has simplybeen Be good neighbors.... Make proper
investments in your establishments. Hire
security. Check ages. Respect peoplesproperty. This citys too crowded for people
to behave, however, they want (Span, 1998).
To be a good and responsible neighbourbecame a mantra that members of theanti-nightlife allianceadministrators,
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politicians and residential communitieshave consistently chanted in confrontingnightlife businesses (also see Bumiller, 1996).The nightlife problem may be rooted in
structural changes, such as residential useencroaching into commercial and manufac-turing zones, but the solution to the problemhas been framed as having to come fromnightlife businesses themselves.
Nightlife business owners continued toclaim that the tightened policing was unfairand that they should be given a credit forpioneering and subsequently revitalisingderelict neighbourhoods like the Lower EastSide (consider the example of Sion Misrahi atthe introduction of this paper; Span, 1998).However, the frame of good/bad neighbourshad the effect of disciplining nightlife intoits own self-governance. Owners tried tobe good neighbours, despite the heavyexpenses of doing so. New businesses nowhad to spend up to $100 000 in legal fees anddelay opening by up to 18 months, due to
the reinforced powers of CBs in reviewingliquor and cabaret licence applications, otherbureaucratic quagmires and the expensivestipulations demanded by residents (such aspaying neighbours for double-pane windowsfor sound-proofing) (interview, the NYNArepresentative, 14 January 2005; Bumiller,1996). This regulatory environment wroughthavoc on underfinanced and unprofitablenightlife businesses, often those of alterna-
tive and experimental sub-cultural scenes. Incontrast, gentrified forms of nightlife, such astrendy lounges and carpeted live music venuesthat possessed sufficient financial capacityto qualify as a good, responsible neighbour,were spared such harassments, even if theywere also susceptible to equally severe anti-nightlife crusades by furious residents andgovernmental authorities.
In the late 1990s, nightlife businessesmobilised themselves to form the New YorkNightlife Association (NYNA) in order tocounteract the governmental crackdown on
nightlife. The NYNA has tried to promote agood neighbour policy among its members asa way to appease residential neighbourhoods,and commissioned a study of the nightlife
industry in the city to publicise nightlifescontributions to the citys economy (Owen,1997). However, the NYNA has also beenblamed by more sub-culturally consciousnightlife actors for endorsing the cabaret lawto keep the monopoly power of its affluentmembers in the dance club market (Romano,2002). Nightlife has been divided within itselfover this issue, but divisions have also oftenemerged between nightlife actors engaged indifferent genres (such as live music vs dance)(interview, NY based DJ, 22 December 2009).These divisions have often presented obstaclesto unified pro-nightlife activism.
History Repeated: 2002 to 2010
The Mike Bloomberg administration, takingoffice in 2002, initiated a new set of nightlife
regulations. The smoking ban in nightlifebusinesses was enacted in 2002, which ownersfuriously contested, as they saw that the banwould increase the amount of noise gener-ated by nightlife on the street. In 2003, theBloomberg administration proposed toreplace the cabaret law with a new law thatwould require a nightlife licence, whichwould regulate nightlife businesses based onnoise and traffic volumes, and not on social
dancing. The administration eventuallybacked off the proposal due to protests bythe NYNA, which saw the nightlife licenceas imposing more onerous requirementson businesses than the current cabaret lawsystem. In 2004, the administration putforward a proposal for a comprehensiveoverhaul of the citys noise code in 30 years(the proposal was legislated in 2007), which
may bring more financial burdens on nightlifebusinesses due to tightened sound-proofingrequirements. In 2006, the City Councilpassed a law that mandated a tightening of
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existing requirements under state law forthe licensing of security guards, includingbackground checks and training for bounc-ers, following a murder case involving the
conviction of a bouncer.While at the governmental level new regula-
tory initiatives have continued to emerge, atthe neighbourhood level the cycle of gentri-fication with and against nightlife has beenreplicated. Williamsburg, in Brooklyn, famousfor its alternative club scene and the presenceof artists who had moved out of gentrifyingManhattan, also gentrified (Zukin, 2010), atwhich point its artists and clubs packed upto Dumbo, elsewhere in Brooklyn. In 2005,the rezoning of some parts of West Chelsea(and the neighbouring Ladies Mile andMeatpacking District) was approved, openingup more residential development there. Afterthe 1990 rezoning of the cabaret law, theseneighbourhoods were among the few areasleft as-of-right for cabarets and have grownas centres of nightlife, especially destination
dance clubs. Under the West Chelsea rezoning,cabarets and other nightlife businesses are stillas-of-right but, clearly, conflicts over nightlifewould mushroom when the area takes on amore residential character, subsequently invit-ing stepped up nightlife regulation (interview,Ivan Schonfeld, CPC staff planner, 30 March2005). Again, nightlife has been primarilyresponsible for triggering gentrification inthis area, this case leading one nightlife com-
mentator to declare that nightlife actors therehave become victims of their own success(Hennessy, 2010; also see Zukin, 2010, p. 26).Indeed, it was very soon reported that danceclubs in this neighbourhood were remakingthemselves into lounge- or restaurant-typebusinesses, in order to avoid future conflictswith residential neighbours (Ferris, 2007).Sub-cultural closure has only expanded.
Rezoning has not been the only processthrough which nightlife has been losing itsspatial ground. Famed music/dance venues(for example, CBGB, The Wetlands) have
been closed after struggling with drasticallyincreased rents and the frequent complaintsof residents. A performance club owner inDumbo said that artists are now leaving
for Berlin, Germany, where public interestis better oriented towards arts and cultures(interview, 8 December 2009). He voluntarilyinvoked Floridas creative thesis to underscorehow arts and cultures are important to thecompetitiveness of cities and to criticise themunicipalitys inaction in protecting sub-culturally rich nightlife. On the other hand,the mayor, who is equally inspired by Florida,frequently reassures the public of the citysplace as one of the worlds foremost culturaland artist centres, and the Citys marketingbranch, NYC and Company, boasts of the citys
jubilant nightlife in its website. This is the ironythat champions of the creative city thesis have
yet to answerthe irony that the creative citymay actually undermine creativity in cities.
Conclusion
Attracting professional constituencies orthe creative class is expected to facilitate thepost-industrialisation of the city as a solutionto the declining urban economy. And, it hasbeen argued that cities and neighbourhoodsthat can provide the charm of authenticmixed-use neighbourhoods, diverse and crea-tive sub-cultures and a vibrant nightlife areespecially appealing to these constituencies.
Proponents of this creativity fix (Peck, 2007),however, have been mute about how the gen-trification that has come with the nightlife fixhas led to the embourgeoisement of nightlife,a process through which the nightlife thatnurtures diverse and alternative sub-cultureshas been largely displaced and through whichneighbourhoods are left with a simulacrumof urban vibrancy. This paper urges that we
should take seriously this process. We have toprovide a critical appraisal of the ways in whichacademics and governmental officials have,explicitly or not, promoted the gentrification
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of nightlife and what important aspects of oursocial and cultural life have been lost throughthis process. This effort will add an importantdimension to the right to the city movements,
which have largely focused on the right toaffordable housing, social services and publicspace, but very little on the disappearance ofimportant sub-cultural spaces in cities.
Notes
1. The history of nightlife regulations in NYC
resists a clear periodisation, but I treat 1990as a point of divide for two roughly different
periods for the purposes of my analysis.2. It is worthwhile to bring up the point that sub-
cultural closure can be observed in different
national/municipal contexts, even though the
process through which each locale experiencesit varies. In this sense, this paper demonstrates
how different locales operate under similar
constraining structural mandatessuch as
the mandate to operate with a creativity fix(Peck, 2007)to get ahead in the context
of intensifying interurban competition, andhow, under such environments, nightlife istransformed in similar ways across different
locales.
3. My research on NYC nightlife consists ofethnographic work starting in the summer
of 2002, with intermittent field trips to
NYC since. The narrative of the 1970sthrough 1980s history was constructed
primarily based on secondary data, from
sources such as newspapers and the relevant
academic literature. This was complementedby interviews with three club owners, one
journalist, one ethnomusicologist and one staffplanner who worked in CPC in this period. The
New York City archive stores documents about
new regulations and laws issued by relevantdepartments in the municipal government,
the majority of which were also newspaper
articles published at the relevant times thatreported on these regulations and laws. Many
of the sources for my paper are thus newspaperarticles. The historical narrative from the 1990sto the present I established mostly based on
interviews and participatory observation,
as well as on media reportage. Intervieweesinclude four anti-cabaret law activists, one
nightlife organisation representative, one
lawyer, two journalists, five club owners and
two DJs. The interviews covered a variety ofsubjects, including governmental regulations
and the transformation of nightlife.4. Under the cabaret law, cabarets were defined
as eating/drinking businesses that: allowed
more than three musicians to play in a venue;allowed musicians to play horns and/or
percussion; and/or, allowed social dancing
(referring to people dancing together, butnot for performance purposes). Cabarets
have been subject to much more stringent
forms of licensing, and planning zones inwhich they have been allowed to locate have
been far more restricted than other nightlife
businesses. The restriction on the use of hornsand/or percussion (due to their association
with Black/Latin music) has led the law to be
contested as racist (Chevigny, 1991).5. Abandoned inner-city areas often become
primary targets of gentrification, as developers
expect to make more net profits there than in
other places (see Smith (1996) for the rent-gap theory that explains this mechanism).
When these derelict neighbourhoods havea marketable cultural capital, real estate
developers feel less doubtful about entering
to invest (Mele, 2000, pp. 220246).6. Once gentrif icat ion kicks in, more
nightlife businesses move into gentrifying
neighbourhoods in order to trade on thebuzz engendered by the presence of yuppie
consumers (Anonymous, Taverners United For
Fairness(TUFF), Listserve, 11 June 2010). Thisaccelerates conflicts over nightlife in gentrifying
neighbourhoods, and it is likely that it was the
case in the Flatiron District, too.7. Musicians Union Local 802 contended that, as
the law discriminated according to the number
of musicians and the type of instrumentsplayed, it violated freedom of expression.
The law did not pass the strict scrutiny in
the states Supreme Court and was declared
unconstitutional (Chevigny, 1991).8. As-of-right development means that a specific
use by an establishment (in this case, socialdancing) is automatically allowed in the
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specific zone that it is located in, without
the establishment having to comply withany special requirements, as long as the
structure that houses the use complies with
the Building Code.9. Chevigny (1991) infers that jazz had become
an accepted, and even lite, music genre by
this time and that this may explain why thecourt and city planners were open to easing
zoning regulations of live music. He argues
that social dancing venues were far fromearning such recognition. This demonstrates,
again, how certain sub-cultures are more
valorised than others in gentrifying andpost-industrialising cities.
10. The increased municipal promotion ofgentrification in this period resulted fromreductions in federal funds to localities in
the 1990s, which increased municipalities
need to generate tax revenues from othersources, such as real estate development, and
also magnified the municipal governments
market-friendly tendencies (for more detailedexplanations of the political economic contexts
of the increased municipal promotion of
gentrification, see Hackworth, 2007, p. 130).
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Don Mitchell for
providing helpful feedback on drafts of this paperseveral times and also wishes to thank Jesook Song
and three anonymous reviewers for suggesting
various ways to improve the arguments made in
this paper.
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