This Used to Be a Club: An Evening of Conversation on Nightlife
Nightlife has long been more than entertainment. For Black, queer, immigrant, and other marginalized New Yorkers, nightlife is infrastructure—a form of inclusive public space in the face of racialized zoning, policing, and gentrification.
This Used to Be a Club is a data-driven reconstruction of club geographies that visualizes cultural displacement. It also celebrates how nightlife communities have persistently engaged in placemaking, culture, and joy.
On June 25, Pratt Center held an evening of conversation on nightlife advocacy. We shared new data on former nightlife spaces in Manhattan and heard from nightlife advocates and workers on how we can learn from the past to save the nightlife spaces of today.
