Brooklyn nightlife giant House of Yes opened an outpost in Manhattan. Will its "burner" aesthetics transform?

Credit...Macausland of the New York Times

Last Friday at 10pm-by nightlife standards, ridiculously early-there was already a long queue outside the House of X, a company conceived by Ian Schrager, the creator and hotelier of House of Yes New Manhattan Club.

Michael Becker-the so-called atmosphere ambassador, hired by the club to push customers to become more relaxed, free and weirder-led a large number of guests into the underground nightclub. Mr. Becker is 39 years old, wearing a leather crown and a shiny red neckline on a black strap, revealing the torso that he has honed in his daily work as a fitness trainer.

"Oh, thank God," said 30-year-old club regular Davide Fikri Kamel (Davide Fikri Kamel), looking at Mr. Becker. "I thought I would be the only one to break the rules tonight."

He need not worry. The trial operation of "House of X" has no shortage of Bacchus style.

The party includes: dancers swinging from a harness tied to their hair; an abuser extinguishes a cigarette on a man’s tongue; and a person in roller skates whose head is covered by a gorgeous lampshade .

Crazy antics like this are very suitable for the sister House of Yes at the Bushwick club in Brooklyn. But will they work in the Lower East Side?

As the party attending Emily Benjamin (Emily Benjamin) said at the beginning of the night: "How did you bring such Brooklyn things to Manhattan?"

Kae Burke and Anya Sapozhnikova opened the original House of Yes in Ridgewood, Queens in 2007. After the fire, the space moved to a warehouse in East Williamsburg in 2008, and then moved to its current location in 2015.

House of Yes’s emphasis on circus art, live performances and gleaming hedonism makes it a paradise for Burning Man lovers known as the “Burner”. The House of X—with its custom-made cocktails, excess velvet, and location below the public hotel—is definitely more luxurious than its predecessor. Nevertheless, the spirit of the burner was baked.

Ms. Burke said: "We can only say that some of the psychedelic in this space may actually be affected by Burning Man."

An exciting detail is a spiral staircase decorated with silicone molds for faces, hands and other body parts. House of X looks and feels like a shiny version of its nightclub neighbor Box. But unlike Box, which calls itself a theater, the dance floor is the center of the House of X.

By 11 o'clock in the evening-very early by dance club standards-the main floor was already full of people. A customer with a gray beard and a neon animal print suit writhed enthusiastically in front of the stage. It is not clear whether he is an atmosphere ambassador or a regular at the civilian club. Mr. Fikri Kamel (the one who fears that he will be the only party guest) is dancing in white spandex shorts with two protruding holes in the back.

For partyers looking for more tactile experiences, there is a room made entirely of blue-green fur. Well, almost exactly: there are some gilded frames with wall-mounted breast shapes and penises.

After guests take off their shoes, they are welcome to use the furry floor, furry pillows, furry sofa and scattered plastic tights. The room was comfortable, quiet, and felt 10 degrees higher than the rest of the club, which made people think about the texture and smell of the fur after a few weeks of opening.

Outside the fur room, as the performance begins, it is more difficult to distinguish between the hired host and the enthusiastic guest.

Is that woman in a sequined bra and panties an atmosphere ambassador? Is the club kid wearing the eggplant emoji-shaped cardboard headgear a "VIP activator"? Is the man with the gray beard spinning around a striptease pole or embracing it all night like a subway commuter?

The climax of the night came when singer Hannah Gill walked onto the stage with a belt attached to the club’s co-owner, Ms. Sapozhnikova.

A mannequin suspended on the dance floor began to move. Its head was a spinning disco ball, and its limbs were animatronics. When Ms. Jill sang a song composed mainly of the names of automata, the suspended plastic cherries swayed up and down: Cherry Baby.

This spectacle is reminiscent of the animated moon and spoon in Studio 54 decades ago. But Schrager, who opened Studio 54 in 1977, insisted that his influence on House of X was minimal.

"The smartest thing I can do is to let them do their thing alone, which I have never done before," Mr. Schrager said in an earlier interview on Zoom.