The bars are smaller and more intimate and usually cater to a really specific crowd ("Come to Fire in the Hole: our night for redheaded twinks and the men who love them") rather than the big tent of the old club that attracts the entire gay rainbow. Gay New Yorkers don't seem to go out like that anymore. XL isn't nearly as large, but that's what it seems to be aiming for.
![xl gay bar nyc xl gay bar nyc](https://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/21094220/Julius-4.jpg)
Going out to a large dance club and the sort of burnished spectacle that goes along with it seems like something out of the past, possibly because it reminds me of going to Roxy and Limelight and Twilo and all those other cavernous clubs back in the day. Maybe he'll finally be taking email addresses? It's the modern equivalent of Blair standing at a table with a clip board getting people to sign up to come to his parties. There is a yet-to-be-completed bank of iPads directly inside the front door so that party goers can sign up for John Blair's infamous mailing list. John Blair, who designed and is promoting the club has a long history in New York gay nightlife (as pointed out by the NY Times yesterday) and he wants to go into the modern era, but kicking and screaming. That's the thing about XL, is that everything it represents seems to be out of a forgotten era.
![xl gay bar nyc xl gay bar nyc](https://gaycities-listing-images-production.s3.amazonaws.com/originals/bars-449-albatross-jjkeyes-c0ad6.jpg)
While I was down there, Crystal Waters "100% Pure Love" was playing. All the surfaces are burnished black, like something out of Less than Zero. They are obviously pandering to the lowest common gay-nominator.ĭownstairs, grasping a rather groovy light-up railing, you'll find the bathroom, a unique two-story structure with urinals upstairs and two rows of stalls (for all sorts of misbehaving) downstairs. On the bar were several huge flower arrangements that looked like something your gay uncle would have in his foyer in Wilton Manors, Florida.
#Xl gay bar nyc windows#
Along the windows facing the street are some comfy banquettes and between that and the bar plenty of cabaret tables with high stools. Following that is the XL cabaret space, which features a circular bar much like the one at classic Chelsea watering hole G Lounge (except there is actually room to walk around the bar). There's two bars on either end of the dance floor, naturally staffed by boys whose muscles were threatening to render their tight XL tank tops asunder.īack down the hallway toward the entrance you pass the strangely-situated VIP room, which offers a good view of the dance floor but no proximity to it. It was more like a pool party, everyone standing around it and marveling at it, but no one wanting to take a dive.
#Xl gay bar nyc full#
Though the crowd wasn't full and it was early in the evening, I didn't see one person on the dance floor all night.
![xl gay bar nyc xl gay bar nyc](https://imgs.6sqft.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/21094209/Julius-2.jpg)
There's a good sized stage on the floor for performances which is backed by a giant LED screen that was playing some sort of fire graphic all night long, like it was the all-seeing eye of Mordor. Upon entering the club, patrons can either go right, towards a large sunken dance floor surround by (I was told by the lighting designer) about $100K worth of lights (which are controlled by a $50K lighting board). As far as large nightclubs, it's quite lovely. Yes, I weaseled my way into the "friends and family" preview of the space last night, anxious to check it out. You all knew that a gay hotel was coming to Manhattan and now we get a first glimpse of what the… A Tour of Manhattan's New Embarrassing Gay Hotel Last night was the opening party for XL, the new nightclub in New York's embarrassing (and dirty) soon-to-open gay hotel The Out NYC.