Passing the Bar: Janis
I should have known that Janis, the new West Village basement lounge, would operate according to the well-established tradition of other subterranean hotspots that is, not getting hot until well after midnight. Instead, here I am at 11:30 on a Friday night, approaching its unmarked door only to find it not yet open.
To bide my time, I stop in for a drink upstairs in de Santos, the year-old Italian joint housed on the brownstones first floor. Two dozen others seem to have the same plan, rendering the bar area a sort of holding pen for people fueling up on drinks before the DJ started spinning downstairs. At that point, owner Luis Miguel assures me, the crowds will start to migrate to the basement dance floor, which for now is only open on Friday and Saturday nights.
I just want people to be able to have a drink and listen to some really good music, Miguel says about opening Janis a month ago. The point was to make it a lot more relaxed than a nightclub.
When I look downstairs at midnight, Janis seemed relaxed indeed, even if what I sense is just the calm before the storm. The small, low-ceilinged room is all bare bones and rustic charm, what with exposed brick, weathered wood beams and unfinished floor all original to the 1845 townhouse. Newer additions include the clump of tufted red leather banquets and poster of the bars namesake, Miss Joplin. The wild-child herself once lived three floors above, and jammed with the likes of Jimi Hendrix in this very basement.
Though the buildings illustrious history also features visits from Bob Dylan and The Ramones, its period as a former brothel seems most in line with its current incarnation. By 12:30 a.m., a serious pick-up scene has developed around Janis tiny, one-man bar. While the bartender pours some lovely Italian wines by the glassmy poison of choice was the Collio Sauvignon Blanc ($12)and mixes up sweet cocktails like the lemony rum-based Xyz ($13), the drinks are clearly secondary to the flirty crowd. In one corner, a group of model-thin lookers collided with a pack of prowling older guys. In another, a few clean-scrubbed Ivy League types boast about their Bank Street apartment to a group of wine-gulping girls. Counteracting the scenewhich, thankfully, couldnt even touch the hipper-than-thou pretension of some other basement spotsare plenty of friendly, jeans-clad, beer-drinking revelers who seem to recognize the potential for this all to turn into some sort of fratty dance party. When I looked downstairs at midnight, Janis seemed relaxed indeed, even if what I sensed was just the calm before the storm. And in a blink, it does. Sure, the booze is finally kicking in, and the single partiers are all eager to take their mating game to the dance floor. But the real reason everyone at Janis starts moving is because the music is just so damn good. First it is crowd-pleasing but obscure 80s tunes, then a little Ace of Base. The nights DJ, Mista Mista (aka Dylan Monroe), is one of a revolving line-up of Beatrice Inn, Boom Boom Room and subMercer alums who keep the party going.
By 1:30, Janis is so packed its impossible to make my way from one end of the room without spilling my drink or encountering the enthusiastic Belgian dude who keeps trying to pull me onto the dance floor.
For a certain type of person, I imagine, this cave of pretty young things grooving and grinding with each other must be nightlife nirvana. But I cant help but think its also the type of scene that would have the iconoclastic Joplin rolling in her grave.
>>JANIS 139 W. 10th St. (betw. Greenwich St. & Waverly Pl.), 212-206-9229.