The Six-Martini, Late-Night Business Scene

Modern business plan for a young artist in New York City:

1. Find out where the cool kids hang out, and get yourself into the best nightclubs in town

2. Drink, dance and party like a rock star

3. If you have done #1 and #2 in the correct nightclub, chances are, you'll make some good business connections.

In her new book, The Warhol Economy, Elizabeth Currid argues that art and culture -- and the nightclubs, catwalks and gallery openings that are so much a part of those industries -- are an integral part of a city's growth and vitality. Put simply, in The Warhol Economy, Currid seeks to prove the economic and social importance of New York City's amorphous cultural pursuits.

The Warhol Economy -- with a nod to Andy Warhol's ability to encourage the intersection between art and commerce -- encourages urban planners and policymakers to take notice of the creative industries: fashion, art and cultural industries combined are the fourth largest employer in New York City, just behind management, professional services and finance. Fashion shows bring out-of-towners to the city. Broadway attracts millions. And in this hip world, deals are not only made in the boardroom -- they are also made on the dance floor, argues Currid, so nightlife and vibrant social networks are crucial for these industries to flourish.

Interviews with bold-faced names including designers Diane Von Furstenberg and Zac Posen, musicians The Talking Heads, and club owner of the legendary CBGB's, Hilly Kristal, make The Warhol Economy an engaging cross between the academic and the gossipy-like an intellectualized Page Six of The New York Post. Even for the reader who has never been to New York City, there's a sense that you've just sat down at the popular table in the lunchroom.

To read the full review, click here.

Follow Christine Whelan on Twitter: www.twitter.com/christinewhelan

Comments

[anfractuous]

What a shame all these preternaturally gifted people are chosing to spend their time partying, and then recovering from partying.
Just imagine if they fully focused their prodigious talents on tangible creative output: we might be living in a new Athens! On second thought, maybe there's a good reason why they're not in the studio, Diane Von Furstenberg to the contrary.

[larry278]

Blessed are the pure in spirit for there is nothing worse than a mixed drink. This blog was straight news with a twist of ...

[priorzola]

This idea is also examined by Richard Florida in his book "The Rise of the Creative Classes". In it he suggests that the cities that have the most tolerance are the ones with the better economic opportunites and housing markets.

This author might attribute this to the Warhol effect on the economy but I believe that it can even more pointedly attributable to possibly the one positive of the AIDS crisis. The AIDS crisis, which led to political unity and public exposure to the fact that some very famous people were indeed homosexual, bringing the gay communty out of the shadows. It also "forced" gay men to choose more safe and sensible sexual arrangements, ie. monogamous long-term relationships.

These long-term relationships led where most loving relationships lead to, co-habitation and the joys of home ownership. The gay community tended to focus their ownership on long-neglected urban neighborhoods where their "lifestyle" would be more accepted. The rise of these dual-male income (often childless) households led to the urban renewal that has proliferated throughout many inner-cities in the past two decades.

Additionally, the rise in the number of heterosexuals singles waiting longer to get married coupled with the rise of the freelance culture. Young people straight and gay, often from towns with dying manufacturing bases, bolted for cities with diversity. Cities like New York, Austin, San Francisco, Portland, Oregon etc have become the beneficiaries of the rise of this creative class. Or perhaps it is these cities and there tolerant policies that have contributed to their own good fortune.

City planners (and politicians) should take note, it is those cities that catered to the politically marginalized (the gay community, bohemians, and immigrants) that are the cities that are thriving. Continually pandering to the het-breeder Wal-mart shopping set is not where the future economy's at. Stop building big stadiums for suburbanites to enjoy (due to high costs for tickets) once or twice a year. Start investing in small business (coffee shops, bars and restaurants) to appeal to the people who already live in the city.

[mommadona]

Rat Pack Redeux?

How boring.

[BadChristian]

God save the average urbanite.

They'll move in, make the place into one big bar/strip-­joint/drug palace, then get married, move out to the suburbs and blame the parents and public school teachers for "The culture of Poverty," they left behind.

Then they can all be born again, and preach about evil cities like Sodom, and the lives of corruption they "used" to live.

[mommadona]

Yep.

Sounds like the city of Las Vegas.....

It allll started with a guy named "Bugsy", a few friends lookin' for a place to "privately unwind", and

there ya go.