Everything that happens feels cooler if it happens in New York City.
And for us, that meant going out to dance. To walk the streets of the Lower East Side, tipsy and giggling about how we went “clubbing in New York.” This August, we had our chance.
We left our hotel at midnight because the nightlife in the Lower East Side doesn’t end until 4 a.m.
Unlike Edmonton with Whyte Ave, NYC doesn’t have a single designated clubbing street; there’s nightlife everywhere. When we saw the bustling streets, we were confident in our choice of neighbourhood.
Locals must send in headshots before they move there; everyone seems to be a model. There was an energy radiating throughout the Lower East Side that even now, we can’t describe beyond “It’s New York City!”
Our first stop of the evening was a popular club. We ended up small-talking in line until they asked if we were on the guest list.
We don’t think about guest lists in Edmonton; every night out is spontaneous.
Without our names on that list, we weren’t getting in, so we returned to wandering the streets of the Big Apple.
We get stopped by a guy crossing the street. Samara asks whether he and his friends are locals and whether they know any “fun places to go.”
He exclaims, “Yes! This bar—,” and points directly across the street to the building on the corner, “—is the best!”
Assured by a recommendation from “oh my god, a local,” we get in line.
The bar is beautiful. There’s no dancing, but the music is popular, and through the haze, we see a bouncer guarding a staircase. We make a beeline for it.
“That’s definitely the line for the dancefloor!” we yell over the music. After five minutes, a stamp, and a shuffle upstairs, we see that we were wrong. Upstairs is also a lounge.
It’s probably 1:30 a.m., and we’re confused; This is New York City, there should be dancing! In Edmonton, even the most sit-down pubs become a dancing club later into the night, and the ones that remain pubs are certainly not called “fun” by twenty-year-olds.
For the rest of the night, we kept saying to each other, “Even O’Byrnes has a dance floor.”
We continued walking with our moods high, dancing to music leaking from the bars we passed; Tori sang Empire State of Mind at regular intervals.
After a couple more failed attempts at finding a dance floor, we were desperate. It’s not this hard back home. You can find a make-shift dancefloor at the worst of bars in Edmonton.
We see a bar with only two guys in line, and they get in as soon as we walk up. The bouncer says it’ll be a five to 15-minute wait. We don’t mind. We’re already dancing.
Fifteen minutes later, we see the bouncers talking. He confirms it’s just the two of us. Then says, “It’s going to be 120 for a bartender right now.”
We look at each other. Ask him to repeat himself, and look at each other again in complete disbelief.
There’s just no way! Cook County Saloon’s $20 cover in Edmonton is crazy enough. 120 USD? 167 CAD for a bartender? With no drinks included? Get choked.
Tori goes silent; it’s past 2 a.m. “I’m still in a great mood right now, I mean, we’re in THE city, but if that happens again, I’m not so sure I will be.”
We never expected to walk away from a night out in New York, making disappointed comments about how even Edmonton has a better nightlife.
Our appreciation for our city only solidified after our first night out in September. It’s the busiest time of year for Edmonton, with universities back in session.
We had no problem deciding to go out at 9 p.m. that night. We even had time to drive to our respective houses before heading to Whyte Ave.
The lines were easy, taking no longer than 10 minutes. Even at Daisy’s Saloon, a hot spot, we only paid an $8 cover and weren’t charged at any of the other bars we went to that night.
Every good bar in Edmonton is cheap and open to spontaneity. It’s easy to find a dance floor on every corner in our city!
It’s officially fall, and students should take full advantage of the back-to-school energy filling Whyte and Jasper Ave. What we have here is actually great; you can take it from us.
