CLUBHOUSE 700 E. 9TH ST. (AVE. C), >212-260-7970 "DID YOU KNOW the ...
> 700 E. 9TH ST. (AVE. C), >212-260-7970
"DID YOU KNOW the bathroom is haunted?" Dominick, the blond faux-hawked bartender, asks. He ratchets down Björk and flicks lint from his black t-shirt.
"Which bathroom?" I ask, setting my seven-dollar gin and tonic on the kidney-curved bar.
"The one on the right. You see, one night I was closing the bar down and I went to check if someone was in the bathroom "
He gazes across the lounge, decorated with yellow-tinted candles, blooming branches and lamps shrouded with velum-paper-like strips. Ghost pause accounted for, he continues:
"So I pulled on the door with all my strengthand I have lots of strengthand I couldn't open it. I walked away and, like magic, the door opened by itself."
"Wow," I say, sipping gin through my straw, "that's spooky."
"Yeah, and when I told the other bartender, he had a ghost story too," Dominick says, moving in front of the faux chandelier.
"In the bathroom, the mirrors are perfectly aligned. So when you look in one mirror, you see, like, tons of reflections of yourself. Know what I'm saying?"
"Yeah, I always get a little freaked when I see my neck hair reflected into infinity."
"Well, this bartender swears that about six reflections back he sees someone with black hair and a jacket. Even the bouncer says he sees spirits," Dominick says. He saunters to the bar-mounted CD player and slips on Keith Sweat-ish soul.
I excuse myself and, bladder brimming, investigate the commode.
The bathroom is standard-issue hip: candle, black tile, polished sink, mirrors. They encase me on four sides, every direction showcasing my cliched Jew schnoz.
I perform my toilet and inspect the mirror again, focusing on the sixth reflection. I do look dark and menacing, but I'm far from an apparition.
"I didn't see any ghosts in there," I tell Dominick, who's engaged in phone-emailing.
"There are, I swear," he says, putting down his phone. "Today I was in the basement getting beer or something, when I heard these real loud stepslike stomping. And I was like, Wanda?she's the owner. But I came back up and no one was here. I was a little scared."
Ghosts are far from Clubhouse's only frightening history. Previously, the bar was punk rock flop 9C.
"Punk rockers would come in here and be like, 'Where's my fucking bar?!' I tried telling them the bar lost its lease, but people were not happy," he recalls. "One guy said, 'It can't be gone. I pissed on the floor right here!" Dominick points toward my feet.
I reflexively move aside, swig what must be swigged and ponder the escalating bathroom mysteries on the corner of 9th and C.