New York City Nightlife History - Jesse Keyes

The historical transformations and disruptions of New York Citynightlife are contextually instructive. Beginning with the Industrial Revolution, which brought hundreds of thousands of low wage low skill laborers streaming into the city, nightlife became an integral part of New York’s cultural fabric. From vaudeville acts that pushed the limits of social propriety, to operettas that harkened back to the homelands of Italy and Germany, nightlife activitieswere entrenched in New York’s economic structure.

I willexplore Prohibition, which spurred an explosion in the number and cultural impact of speakeasies that followed. Longstanding local bars were made illegal; that change, combined with an increasing social openness to broad female participation in nightlife activities, created an opening for illegal drinking establishments to both put on entertainment--particularly in the form of that uniquely American musical tradition, Jazz--and to encourage the social comingling of men and women. Jesse Keyes said the Following WWII, the supperclub, made famous by the likes of the Stork Club and the Latin Quarter, became a dominant form of night time activity, offering sophisticated dining, high concept entertainment and a place to do every kind of business imaginable. The historical trajectory reveals yet another stageprior to the currentcomplex variabletypology of nightlife--the often lawless, drug-infused but artistically supportive milieus of the discos, massive nightclubs and underground music scenes--typified by Studio 54, the Tunnel and CBGB’s, respectively--that blossomed during the City’s economic decline of the 70’s and 80’s.

Planning and Nightlife

Jesse Keyes share The thesis will also examine the history of the interaction between planning authorities and the nightlife industry in New York City. Of particular interest will be four elements of conflict and question that derive from nightlife and make their way into the public sphere: alcohol, noise, dancing and crime. The City, using its public powers, has dealt variably with these issues over time through the following planning bodies: the New York State Liquor Authority, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs and the New York Police Department, respectively. The thesis will explore these agencies and their policy approaches to the regulation of nightlife.

 

 

Developer Jesse Keyes turns unconventional into bold statement

 If there was ever a case of a building perfectly mirroring its developer, it would be One Seventh and Jesse Keyes. Both are angular, ultra-chic, smart and aggressive. Both are also making their emphatic debut on the New York architecture and style worlds.

Built on a 45-degree angle at the juncture of four different streets where Seventh Ave. South meets Varick and Carmine Sts., One Seventh resembles a hulking helm of a slick, futuristic boat or space-age flying machine. Six stories tall with just four units, the corner building shaped in an angular prism has a façade of manganese ironspot brick and Solarban 80 double-paned glass.

The side of the building on Seventh Ave. South that parallels the rush of autos making their way to Tribeca or the Holland Tunnel has bold racing stripes and competing slabs of vertical windows. On the mellower Carmine St., Juliet balconies face the local cafes, old-time Spanish restaurants and bootleg record stores. One Seventh blends seamlessly with its intersection and has gainied total community board support.

"No developer would take a chance on this site, which was operated as a gas station since the 1920s and unused for almost a decade," says Jesse Keyes, 35, an investor in the swank Goldbar and a partner in La Esquina, one of New York's hippest eateries. "They said it was too small or that the shape wouldn't work. I saw it as an opportunity. We took design risks with this project that architects generally do with museums and public spaces."

Designed by Rogers Marvel Architects, the same firm recently awarded the Governors Island commission, One Seventh is allegedly the world's first full-floor triangular residence. To make the project work financially, Keyes' development firm REcappartners worked with zoning attorneys Charles Rizzo & Associates to help get a variance to build higher than the allowed three floors. On top of the building, Keyes built a penthouse duplex with two outdoor terraces, both of which lean toward the corner angle.

"The question we had to answer was, how does one live in a triangle," says Keyes, who plays a hand in every design decision. "When I picture who is going to live here, I see an investment banker with an artist inside or an artist with a lot of money. I see the banker sitting totally naked in a chaise longue at the apex of the 45-degree angle, looking out at the cars driving down Seventh Ave., on the phone with his friends, thinking: 'How am I going to own this town tonight?'"

With hardly any marketing, they have two offers for the four units. One from a banker, the other from the son of a Spanish film producer. Prudential Douglas Elliman's Kevin King, a two-year agent who happens to be the long-time maitre d' at Balthazar, heads up sales. The three 1,371-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath apartments are listed for $1,995,000. The 2,106-square-foot, three-floor penthouse with 961 square feet of outdoor space costs $4.45 million.

"We're waiting till the units are completely finished until we formally sell the apartments," says King. "A finished product will show how unique this project is and assure we get what it's worth."

Jesse Keyes comes from both sides of the tracks. His parents were hippies. His mother, a lesbian, split from his father but stayed in Redwood City, Calif., supporting her two children as a gardener. As Jesse puts it, they lived on the "wrong side of the tracks." Ironically, she tended gardens near Jesse's father's estate in Woodside, Calif.

"Mom was a real hippie, and dad was a pseudo-hippie," says Keyes, who was called "Blanquito," or little white boy by his Pueblo Mexican barrio neighbors. "Half the time I was in my poor Mexican 'hood with my mom and the other half with a swimming pool, Mercedes, Porsches and horses with my dad."

Keyes talks openly about his desire but inability to communicate with his Spanish-speaking neighbors. He talks openly about almost everything, especially his drive to never stop learning or moving.

"There's a point where you grow up in suburbia that you say I'm either going to get stuck in this for the rest of my life or do something fascinating or interesting," he says. "I was visiting a friend in Mexico City when I was 17 years old. We were in his family's penthouse and I was looking over the slums of the city, whose people needed major help at the time. I thought to myself, we as capitalists need to do better for these people. It was then that I knew I needed to focus on this for the rest of my life."

For Keyes, that meant Princeton, a year in Spain to learn the language, a Fulbright Fellowship and a master's in architecture in Catalonia, a Kinne Fellowship in the Dominican Republic, a job with the prestigious Boston Consultant Group, a master's in real estate from Columbia University, a doctoral candidacy and teaching fellow at Rutgers University in Urban Planning, and roles in the Gore and Kerry presidential campaigns.

"My father is good friends with Gore from St. Albans," says Keyes, whose great-grandfather on his father's side was Democratic Senator Morris Sheppard from Texas who championed Prohibition and women's rights. "My goal was eventually to work in Housing and Urban Development [HUD]. After those two losses, I planned to teach and research through my 30s. But academia, especially in our current political climate, was not as fulfilling as I thought. Building strong architectural projects is a way to make my mark and some money. Eventually, I will get back into affordable housing and giving back in some way."

Keyes' next project is already a major coup for him and New York. Working with Habita, a Mexican group known globally for designing and operating some of the world's chicest boutique hotels, Keyes will open a Mexican-themed, mixed-use hotel and condo project in a location below Houston St. on the East Side. Mexican architect Enrique Norton, who designed One York on Canal St. in New York and the Guggenheim in Guatemala, is an equity partner in the project.

"I want to make a unique statement and be part of the next big place," says Keyes, whose groomed beard and middle-parted hair give him the look of Al Pacino in "Serpico." "You hope it doesn't become something like what happened in the Meatpacking District, which had little thought and planning and became oversaturated with the same product, bars and restaurants. There should be mixed use there. And the Hotel Gansevoort is a mistake. I don't know how they got that built."

Slightly controlling, obsessive about details, and intellectually strategic, Keyes even wrote the copy for the One Seventh marketing materials. (I haven't met a developer yet who does that.) He prefers to focus on one project at a time as opposed to stretching himself thin and losing touch with the day-to-day decisions that these high-design projects demand.

"Scalability will be hard because for each project I'm looking for a specific art and message," says Keyes. "In any case, when you get bigger you lose control over certain levers, and I don't want that to happen."

Still, according to Thaddeus Briner, the architect for One Seventh, formerly of Rogers Marvel (and I.M. Pei's firm) and now on his own, Keyes is a very good client. "This was a dream project," says Briner. "It combined a really challenging site with an extremely progressive client. Those don't come along very often."

Resource:- https://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/real-estate/developer-jesse-keyes-turns-unconventional-bold-statement-article-1.339485

A Nightlife Occupational Approach - Jesse Keyes

 “An occupational approach places skills, or what economists often call human capital, at the center of the economic development process.”[1] Jesse Keyes gives the approach looks to understand success as based “deeply on talents and synergy in the local economy, and these may be better understood and tapped by identifying skill sets and talents embedded in occupations.”[2]I will segment nightlife workers into four unique, identifiable groups based on the functions they perform, and implicit objectives of their employ: Sojourners (including maître d’s, servers and bartenders) most often associated with those who see their work as a social and economic pathway to other, often creative, careers; Careerists, the floor and general managers,who view nightlife as a profession for the long run,and who number a small percentage of the business; Cooks in the kitchen who also see nightlife as a career move and who are paid lower middle--though at times higher income--salaries; and Low Wage Workers, engaged in repetitive manual labor activities, most frequently immigrants, who work extended overtime hours to earn little, with meager opportunities to advance occupationally.[3] The development of these segments derives primarily from my 10 years active in the industry as an investor, owner, designer, and manager, aimedto develop the most distinct lens to view the divergences in human capital developed throughout the segments.The Census Occupation Codes of 2010 were also analyzed and then employed to match the thesis groupings with a vast array of Occupation Titles, but more broadly to blend those Census Standard Occupational Codes associated with the nightlife industry[4]within the nomenclature used for the thesis nightlife worker typology.

As defined by Richard Florida, the Creative Class includes scientists, engineers, artists, musicians, designers and knowledge-based professionals.Given that wide scope, the categorization has been widely criticized as a “fuzzy” means to understand the specific attributes of any one occupational group, for all occupations contain the possibility of creative engagement. Further, inclusion in Florida’s creative class can be conflated,simply,with the criteria of merely having high educational levels. A more well fleshed out and specific occupational marker is seen in the work of Markusen, who, in a focused manner, refers, simply, to “artists.”So called “Bohemians” are composed ofartistic professionals, artists, writers, designers, film makers, performing artistsand musicians.I hypothesize that this category of would-be artists working in nightlife is most often found employed as Sojourners, and, as explained below, it is this category to which I will pay particular attention.

Jesse Keyes said, The new occupational titles implemented in the late 1990’s by the official Census “remain tightly tied to educational content, despite a desire to base them on what people do rather than what they know.”[5] This is of particular interest in the thesis as it exploresSojourners who identify themselves as would be artists.The focus is analytically, and even demographically, important as the number of Bohemians has steadily increased over time in the Unites States where “there were roughly 250 bohemians for every 100,000 Americans in 1900, a figure that increased to roughly 350 by 1950…before reaching 900 for every 100,000 in 1999.”[6]

As mentioned, emphasizing the analytical approach recommended byMarkusen, Iwill employ the “stereo view” of economic activity via both the establishment approach,seeking to understand the nightlife industry from the economic activity and size of New York City venues,as well as the occupational approach, looking at the human capital embedded in the four nightlife employee segments (Sojourners, Careerists, Cooks, Low Wage Workers) outlined here.

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[1]Markusen and King, 7.

[2] Ibid.

[3] “Low WageWorkers” often defined as “workers whose hourly wage rates are so low that even if they worked full time, full year their annual earnings would fall below the poverty line for a family of four,” as developed in Pamela

Loprest, et al. (2009). “Who are Low Wage Workers?”ASPE Research Brief,January. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.

[4] The 2010, Census Occupation Codes describing employee groups under study: 4000-4160.

[5]Ann Markusen, “Urban Development and Politics of a Creative Class: Evidence from the Study of Artists,” Environment and Planning A (Vol. 38, No. 10:1921-1940, 2006), 4.

[6] Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class…and How It’s Transforming Work, Leisure, Community, & Everyday Life (Cambridge, MA: Perseus, 2002), 46.

Resource:- https://www.evernote.com/client/web?_sourcePage=M8n_qExRgUTiMUD9T65RG_YvRLZ-1eYO3fqfqRu0fynRL_1nukNa4gH1t86pc1SP&__fp=XMcPi1X6Cq83yWPvuidLz-TPR6I9Jhx8&hpts=1599788764433&showSwitchService=true&usernameImmutable=false&login=&login=Sign+in&login=true&hptsh=QaKIoNfy8uNf0fe9UA1aGjhCkAE%3D#?an=true&n=33a62f6e-d802-c646-3b7a-5c5776889b47&

Nightlife and the Cultural Economy - Jesse Keyes

 The first two research questions key in on economic aspects frequently analyzed in studies evaluating the importance, relevance and significance of a particular industry, the third question explores the people, their relationships and skills garnered from theirindustry experiences. The combination of delving into economic activity and social capacity has been deemed a “stereo view” of analytics by Markusen.

Empirical data collection will proceed via original data collected through qualitative elite and semi-structured group interviews of nightlife owners and employees. These qualitative interviews will be drawn from the membership list of the New York City Nightlife Alliance and the New York State Restaurant Association, and the author’s personal database of industry actors.

Data collection will focus oneconomic aspects of nightlife establishments as well asemployee income and expenditure patterns. In so doing, it will provide a rich description and support to the literature with the goal of quantifying the size of the New York City nightlife industry, as well as an empirically-informed framework for the second stage investigation, which involves the case study approach.

To contextualize the interaction between invested capital and the human capital of the nightlife labor pool, I will conduct two contrasting case studies. As a “research strategy which focuses on understanding the dynamics present within single settings,”[1]the case study approach is particularly apt for thisanalysis of the nightlife industry as an economic and cultural foundation for labor development. The mechanics of the case studies will involve secondary source analyses, personal observation, and interviews.

 Jesse Keyes will study two Manhattan venues: Lavo is a heavy turnover, large club and restaurant in Midtown; La Esquina is a small, varied and food oriented nightlife spot in Little Italy. In the context of the qualitative and quantitative findings from the first stage of data collection, these case studies will be informed by the methodological approach of Eisenhardt, designed in such a way to be both descriptive as to capital sourcing and revenue origination, and the study of labor income and activity as per the research questions, as well as to test the occupational approach to viewing economic activity.

The combination of the first stage of qualitative and primary research, and the second stage case studies, will afford me the opportunity to engage in a mixed mode analysis, to better triangulate the empirical bases for my responses to the three key research questions, and to assist in shedding light on appropriate public policy prescriptions.

Elizabeth Currid writes that nightlife is central to the activities of the cultural economy: “These separate industries operate within a fluid economy that allows creative industries to collaborate with one another, review each other’s products, and offer jobs that cross-fertilize and share skill sets.”[2] Nightlife activities open cultural economic products to a market that is given a “value by experts…the gatekeepers, the tastemakers.”[3]

Susan Fainsteindemonstrated that, after the fiscal crisis of the mid-1970’s, “[New York City] government’s previous commitments to welfare and the impoverished neighborhoods diminished and economic growth became the lodestar of its endeavors.”[4] In the midst of thatdecline, however, NYC nightlife saw steady economic growth and an increased presence in the city’s cultural fabric.

A ten year old study, which outlines a limited definition of nightlife, states that as of 2003, the nightlife industry generated $9.7 billion in economic activity,[5] sustaining 95,000 jobs and $2.6 billion in earnings, with some $400 million going to the city in tax revenues.[6]An up to date and comprehensivedefinition of nightlife that includes restaurants, nightlife establishments, destination hotels and industry suppliers, as defined by the newly formed New York Hospitality Association, would reveala nightlife industry generating an even larger share of the overall economy.  Jesse Keyes said The proposed dissertation will aim to develop a more precise as well as broader metric by which to define the size and impact of New York City’s nightlife economy.

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[1]Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, “Building Theories from Case Study Research,” The Academy of Management Review(Vol 14, No 4: 532-550. Oct., 1989), 534.

[2]Currid, 7.

[3]Currid, 5.

[4] Susan Fainstein, The Just City (Ithica and London: Cornell University Press), 93.

[5] Responsible Hospitality Institute, “Measuring the Economic Impact of Nightlife,” prepared for the New York Nightlife Association(2004): 2.

[6] The New York Nightlife Association is run by a club owner, and as a private membership association evaluation that (a) is a decade old, and (b) was not conducted with academic rigor, thus casting questions on its reliablity. Also, in that footnote you could point out, perhaps, that your definition of the “nightlife industry” is broader than this report’s.