die-already

Chelsea's New Clubs: Orientalist Delight

Joshua Stein · 07/30/07 04:30PM

We were all ready to place coins on the eyes of clubby old West Chelsea, say the mourner's kaddish and move on. But the neighborhood—once the festering apotheosis of New York clubdom but of late home only to the sordid, the has-been and the almost-ran—isn't dead yet. As New York reports, J. E. Englebert, the Staten Island nightlife entrepreneur from whose loins sprang Quo, Pre:Post and Retox, is opening a new venture in the neighborhood: "In October [Englebert and his partners will] open a 4,000-square-foot lounge called Suzie Wong's." The name comes from Richard Mason's 1957 novel The World of Suzie Wong, later turned into a ballet (pictured!), about a Chinese prostitute with a heart of gold. Kind of like those who hang out in West Chelsea, minus the ethnic qualifier. And swapping crotch for heart and crabs for gold.