What Would You Pay To JOIN The Gaiety?

[+ Lucky]

From Page Six, we learn of yet another fancy strip club opening in Manhattan for the rich straight guys. If this stuff can work for them, maybe we can try our own membership club!

 

EYE-CANDY HUNT

 

A FRENCH men's club that charges members a whopping $50,000 a year is looking for "stunning women and models" to work as exotic dancers, bartenders and waitresses at its soon-to-open Midtown location. Chateau du Grand Vaucroze, based in Avignon, will pay each beauty around $140,000 a year to work at the shadowy Manhattan joint, which opens in September, according to an ad on Craig's List. "The club services high-class, high net worth individuals who pay a membership fee of $50,000," reads the ad. "We have the best cuisine for this type of venue and are considered one of the classiest, best places to work in France."

[+ Lucky]

From Page Six, we learn of yet another fancy strip club opening in Manhattan for the rich straight guys. If this stuff can work for them, maybe we can try our own membership club!

 

EYE-CANDY HUNT

 

A FRENCH men's club that charges members a whopping $50,000 a year is looking for "stunning women and models" to work as exotic dancers, bartenders and waitresses at its soon-to-open Midtown location. Chateau du Grand Vaucroze, based in Avignon, will pay each beauty around $140,000 a year to work at the shadowy Manhattan joint, which opens in September, according to an ad on Craig's List. "The club services high-class, high net worth individuals who pay a membership fee of $50,000," reads the ad. "We have the best cuisine for this type of venue and are considered one of the classiest, best places to work in France."

[Guest Rendie]

Hi Lucky,

 

Hmmm, let's see. What was the Gaiety charging when it closed? I think it was $17 on weekdays and $20 on weekends.

 

Therefore:

 

(17 + 20) x 52 = $1924.00

 

That's what I would pay annually to join another Gaiety.

 

Although, if it actually does happen, I would probably be willing to pay lots more.. :-)

 

enjoy

Rendie

[Guest Rendie]

Hi Lucky,

 

Hmmm, let's see. What was the Gaiety charging when it closed? I think it was $17 on weekdays and $20 on weekends.

 

Therefore:

 

(17 + 20) x 52 = $1924.00

 

That's what I would pay annually to join another Gaiety.

 

Although, if it actually does happen, I would probably be willing to pay lots more.. :-)

 

enjoy

Rendie

[KY_TOP]

>Hmmm, let's see. What was the Gaiety charging when it closed?

>I think it was $17 on weekdays and $20 on weekends.

 

Yeah, but I can remember many here complaining about that price.

 

Unicorn in Indy is a private club and they only charge $5.00 per night.

 

As to the original question. Would I pay to join the Gaiety? If I lived in NYC, yes but not at the price the str8's are paying.

[KY_TOP]

>Hmmm, let's see. What was the Gaiety charging when it closed?

>I think it was $17 on weekdays and $20 on weekends.

 

Yeah, but I can remember many here complaining about that price.

 

Unicorn in Indy is a private club and they only charge $5.00 per night.

 

As to the original question. Would I pay to join the Gaiety? If I lived in NYC, yes but not at the price the str8's are paying.

[Guest zipperzone]

>As to the original question. Would I pay to join the Gaiety?

>If I lived in NYC, yes but not at the price the str8's are

>paying.

 

Well if the rich straight guys are paying 50K I'll bet they can be assured of getting nothing but top quality shows & service.

 

No temper tantrums, no no-shows, no "attitude" at the box office and a hell of a lot better accomodations without discarded gum on the floors, frayed sagging seats and, no old farts hogging the best front row seats even if they are not using them for long periods of time.

 

It will be a class act - not a term that I would have applied to the Gaiety.

[Guest zipperzone]

>As to the original question. Would I pay to join the Gaiety?

>If I lived in NYC, yes but not at the price the str8's are

>paying.

 

Well if the rich straight guys are paying 50K I'll bet they can be assured of getting nothing but top quality shows & service.

 

No temper tantrums, no no-shows, no "attitude" at the box office and a hell of a lot better accomodations without discarded gum on the floors, frayed sagging seats and, no old farts hogging the best front row seats even if they are not using them for long periods of time.

 

It will be a class act - not a term that I would have applied to the Gaiety.

[+ Lucky]

Well, zipper, let's assume that if you paid enough, the management would have a class facility. The part of this story that interested me is that guys would pay a $50,000 membership to have a club like this. Given what we have seen happen, it looks like guys who want a top notch regular strip club have to pay for it. As another poster pointed out, there was lots of bitching when the Gaiety raised its prices; there is now a lot of bitching about the drink prices at Club 20. But anyone who is going to enter the thicket of New York law and the vagaries of police regulation is going to want to be well-compensated for it.

[Guest zipperzone]

>Well, zipper, let's assume that if you paid enough, the

>management would have a class facility. The part of this story

>that interested me is that guys would pay a $50,000 membership

>to have a club like this.

 

That is roughly $1000 per week of after tax money. Wow! I wonder if this is for membership only. Do you think they are still expected to tip the dancers, buy drinks etc. I guess if you can afford the 50k, the incidentals are no big deal eh? Just think, if he only had 100 members, that would give him a gros of 5 million per year.

[Guest JohnPela]

>>As to the original question. Would I pay to join the

>Gaiety?

>Zipperzone:

>Well if the rich straight guys are paying 50K I'll bet they

>can be assured of getting nothing but top quality shows &

>service.

>

>No temper tantrums, no no-shows, no "attitude" at the box

>office and a hell of a lot better accomodations without

>discarded gum on the floors, frayed sagging seats and, no old

>farts hogging the best front row seats even if they are not

>using them for long periods of time.

>

>It will be a class act - not a term that I would have applied

>to the Gaiety.

 

Zipperzone,

 

I have been in more straight strip clubs in the last 3 years then I would like to think about. They were all well run, nice surroundings, high liquor prices, nice looking girls (for those wanting that), nice tables/chairs and lighting. And you are charged for everything from coat check to going to the bathroom. Club 20 is classy, since it is a straight strip club 6 days a week. It all depends on people willing to go to a good male strip club.

 

When I was at Club 20 at beginning of April, it was almost empty of patrons, maybe 15 at the most were there. It was a good night as far as weather. With such a large customer base to draw on in NYC, Club 20 should have more attending each Sunday. Maybe they need to spread the word to out-of-towner old gay tourists.

[JonyPDX]

Ok, gentlemen. Point of issue. It's been stated here that the Unicorn in Indianopolis is just 5 dollars for entrance. When compared to the other venues that've been discussed here, five dollars for the Unicorn is overpriced. The venue's ok, but the men are skinny, deprived, needy, I'll not go on. Suffice it to say, Don't make a point of going to the Unicorn, it's NO Madrigal's (Or Campus or Westside Club, or Stock, or fill in your OWN blank here).

-JPDX

[+ Lucky]

RE: What Would You Pay

 

I had a great time at the Unicorn last summer. It was a very friendly place with some very fun dancers.

[Luv2play]

IMO a male stripper club at the high end with multi-thousand memebership fees would never work, not even in NYC. What does work is a stripper club that has nice looking guys dancing and taking it all off such as in Montreal clubs and being able to hire (some) of these guys for privates where the sky is the limit in how much you want to spend on them.

 

I was at a private birthday party a week ago in a club that was closed to the public for the occasion. The club in question is half owned by a former dancer from one of Montreal's male stripper bars and he owns a very nice condo in the Old Port curtesy of his rich American lover (well, he has a girl-friend on the side but lets not go there). His ownership in the club is also curtesy of his male companion. Three years ago, this guy was just another hunk dancing and doing privates for the price of a high end restaurant meal for 2 in NYC.

 

The point of my story is there is money to be made in the world of male strippers but you have to know how to play the game and have the means to do so. Some do, many don't.;-)

[BgMstr4u]

I can't tell you what an empty hole in my life was left when the Gaiety closed. I wish so much that it could open again. But, I am afraid it never will.

 

What would make possible the return of a Gaiety-like venue in NYC? Well, IMHO, it is all but impossible.

 

Consider...

 

1) Location (or as the real estate ladies say, Location, Location, Location). The Gaiety was right in the heart of Broadway, with the nation's (or perhaps the world's) best public transportation nodes just blocks away, steps from the theaters and restaurants of Broadway. The Gaiety was the greatest all-evening weekend show of its type in the world, right on Broadway. And for a quickie, ideal for before or after a show, and it worked for me, over and over. Many was the time I would decide on a whim to see a show, get a half-priced ticket from TKTS, a hot dog from the corner cart, and a show at the Gaiety before the curtain rose. So New York! Where else in the world can you/could you see a great show on a moment's notice? That location was a function of the weird way NYC protects older properties to allow new properties to rise higher than they should. The new building is slated for 3 storeys -- why? Air rights. Almost certainly that's what protected that building so long, and HoJo and the Gaiety were the beneficiaries of a longer than usual stay of execution at that site. We can probably thank the Marriott Marquis for extra years of fun. Could a new Gaiety find a similar location? Probably not. The current Manhattan crop of straight strip clubs are on the far west by the new river-level highway in locations you basically have to drive to, or in warehouses in industrial districts in the outer boroughs.

 

2) Legality. The laws in NYC on everything are so complex you need lawyers just to sneeze. As long as you are grandfathered, you're basically ok if you play the game. But once you've closed down, it's a whole nother world, and requires megabucks and the patience of Job to thread your way through the thicket.

 

3) Management. Denise was Dedicated, that's for sure. She was there day in and day out, year after year, dealing with the many issues she had to deal with, and kept the business on an even keel, kept the boys dancing, kept the police at bay, kept the electricity on, the sound system working, the cat fights at a minimum, and all for $20 or less toward the end. I think the word for what she did was vocation. There are damn few like her, and perhaps she would have a different attitude after some well-deserved time off. That kind of intense consistency is very rare.

 

4) Talent. We're all familiar with the vagaries of the working boys of the world. Some are terrific, show up on time, give a great show, are pleasant before and after and happy with what they're doing. They would be an asset anywhere, and probably are now, somewhere else. But then you have the sweet, vague flakes with their thousands of excuses for not turning up/not dancing well/not being present to the clients, etc. And you have the gold diggers, who disappear from the stage when a couple of 100s are waved in their faces. And you have the immigration-challenged Canadians, who might or might not make it to Port Authority on the overnight bus from Montreal. And, unfortunately, you have the druggies. It was part of Denise's unique management skill always - ALWAYS - to bring off an interesting show. God knows what was said in that tiny office/booth of hers, but it brought results.

 

In short, the Gaiety filled a legal and real estate niche which I am afraid has disappeared, and required a unique and dedicated human being to make it work. Will we see it again? Maybe in some outer borough industrial park, but then many of the guys who came to the Gaiety won't come. I certainly wouldn't. I gave up my car when I moved to Manhattan, and I'll bet a lot of other Gaiety types did too.

 

Alternatives? Occasional gay nights at 20 or similar straight places where the boys don't take all their clothes off and we are stiffed for everything but breathing. Plan ahead, bring your money, be prepared to be patronized. Oh, the spontaneity! Oh, the joy, the freedom of being in a place which exists for you and people like you! Not. An occasional semi-private party in a loft or other space where you have to find out about it in advance. I loved the post-Gaiety parties in that cute little s/m loft run by that lovely lady. The secret codes to get in! The home-made furnishings! The s/m display cages at rest along the side walls, promising I don't know what, but adding that certain something! The appearance of her British slave one night -- God, he was hot! Did she auction him off? It was like Prohibition! The Hernando's Hiadeaway of gay stripping! Gone with the wind. And finally, Fabulous Private Parties, like the one referenced in the previous post. But then most of us are not Fabulous, and so we probably won't be invited.

 

Oh, dear, sweet Tony Mecelli, will I ever see you strut your stuff again? Alas.

 

Ou sont les neiges d'antan?

 

Thoughts?

[tazmanian5230]

BgMstr,

Well said.

I was at all of the places you wrote about.

How could we have never met? Or did we?

[BgMstr4u]

I believe we did. But I will take the details to a private communication. Check your private messages.