The strip clubs we visit and the ghettos we share

And yeah I had my phase, driving around Harlem, the South Bronx in search of cheap pussy. But ultimately I'm done with ghetto bitches, I'll just save money and club less frequently to afford the GPS crew.

Although there some places even I won't go? I think Puta Tester wrote an article about mongering in Jaurez, Uh yeah fuck that shit right there. Really good read though, I'm too lazy find it.

And the clubs in Irvington and the Oranges in New Jersey. Yeah hell to the no on that one. Remember Naughty by Nature singing about staying the fuck out of the ghetto, that's exactly where they were talking about and it's just fucked up as it was back then, I'll heed their advice. Misterorange, God bless your adventures out there.

Back when we used maps, we went to Springfield, MA for Mardi Gras knew 2 dancers who were working. Asked if any other clubs nearby, 2, oh shit, bad neighborhood, dive bar, scary dudes club 1, club 2, drug dealer greeted us and asked if we wanted anything. . we quickly returned to Mardi Gras

And a couple years back I'm doing a guide to Philadelphia for an article on here. So I'm bouncing around hitting all the clubs in town. There was one called Levels in Kensington. I don't know if it's still open but the neighborhood, I said Fuck all this, I ain't leaving my car here to get fucked up while I'm in this ratchet ass dive. Outta there in less than 2 seconds.

Back in my younger years in the northeast, I used to visit clubs like this. They are throwbacks to a time when small clubs in residential neighborhoods could still get licensed, before many areas changed their zoning to push clubs out to industrial areas and entertainment districts. Most of these old clubs are easily 40+ years old.

But I'm long past the point in my life where I want to hang out in the worst of the worst dives in the hood rat enclaves of places like Bridgeport and Stamford CT. The only way to avoid problems in those clubs was to look like you could take care of yourself if shit hit the fan. Back then I definitely did, but probably not so much now. I like to think that I still can, but I'm not foolish enough to believe that I'm as strong or as fast as I was back then.

No thanks. I still enjoy clubs with a little bit of grit, but the true hell hole dives are no fly zones for me.

I used to have actual nightmares about getting jammed up in the hood when visiting the long-closed Oasis in Camden. The city had the highest murder rate in the country for a long stretch in the 80s and 90s.

Yeah, some of the clubs in Baltimore are in rough places

^ I went to the Block in Baltimore with buddies about 15 years ago. While we were walking down the street a couple cops approached us and told us we shouldn’t be there because it was too dangerous. We mostly laughed it off and went to the Hustler Club and had a great time. We walked back to our hotel on the inner harbor at about 2am. It was stupid - a couple of my buddies are big rough dudes, but why go looking for trouble?

Studme, some of the places that Muddy and I are talking about make the Block look like a church fairground. I've bounced from club to club there countless times over the years and never worried about very much. Heck on time, also around 15 years ago, I picked up an OTC partner in one of those clubs and walked with her to my hotel.

My favorite club is Vivide in Atlanta but to get to it I have to drive through the worst area for crime. Vine City.

"Crime rates in Vine City are 211% higher than the national average, with violent crimes being 457% higher than the national average,"

I don't go clubbing anywhere at night anymore.

A lot of guys around Fort Myers talk about not clubbing at night after some 2AMers. Maybe its just growing up in Chicago and being a young man in St.
louis and New Orleans, but I rarely feel unsafe in this area. Yeah, the crowd gets rougher, younger, and more diverse; but the girls get hotter and more aggressive. It's a trade-off.

I think the most wary I felt while clubbing recently was at Crazy Girls Pinellas in Largo, FL. A strip mall with homeless people and drug addicts, lights out, litter everywhere. I feel I was a little reckless checking it out, but I really wanted to get a recent review for the site.

I used to not give a fuck. Partially because when I was younger I probably could have handled myself, and for a while after that I probably still thought I could even though I couldn't. But now things have changed. My budget is certainly one of them, another is that I'm old enough to know I probably can't handle myself.

But, more than anything I feel like the pricing structure has evolved. The prices in those sketchy clubs has increased must faster than the other clubs, while the quality has fallen off almost as much. The value proposition just isn't there, even when ignoring the safety issues.

I'm not gonna go into a sketchy club in a dangerous area to pay 90% for a 6 when I can go to a decent but not great area and pay 100% for an 8 or 110% for a 9. 5 years ago, the equation was very different. I'd pay 50% for a 7.5 or quite often find a diamond in the rough 8.5 and pay 60-70% and she'd go out of her way to ensure she kept me as a regular.

At the same time, the safety equation has changed. The risk has increased. 15 years ago a trip gone wrong woulda resulted in maybe an ass kicking and maybe loss of my phone/watch/wallet. Nowadays, it wold probably result in homicide and grand theft auto.

Less reward, greater risk = bad value.

Left a SF club one night years back. Hotel was in the tenderloin. On my walk back I saw fights and junkies shooting up in the streets. Needless to say, I finished smoking my joint and got out of there 😂

orange, nj: around 3pm exit off the train. as i'm walking i notice a jacked homeless guy conditioning his knuckles against the rocked up walls.

after getting off at the club i'm waiting for the 6:15 to head back to nyc. knuckles approaches me. ahh shit is my mind reaction. turns out he keeps me company. tells me his present and recent past situation-served time in prison. i did say he was jacked right? train arrived. the guy actually is pretty cool. i give him 5 bucks. gave him another 5 at another time thereafter and that was that.

long island city in queens, nyc. no not that area where there's all condos and shit. in the 90's there was a hole in the wall club with real nice russian girls. when i first started going there i didn't know the bus routes in that area that well. as a result one night i get off the train and walk towards there. 20-25 min walk holding an umbrella under s nasty rainstorm, walking through a highway underpass, and passing by many warehouses around 11-12 midnight. surprisingly no lot lizards to be seen.

I delude myself all the time that bad shit isn't going to happen to me in sketchy urban areas, especially since I have a penchant for walking to clubs from my hotel because I'd rather get knifed or shot or a beatdown rather than a DUI. I also embrace the Dances With Wolves mythology that I look so out of place that the locals with think I'm too crazy to mess with.

In Europe and Asia, they do not confine strip clubs and gogo bars and brothels to the worst slums in the cities. I feel comfortable walking around at 2 AM in Bangkok or Pattaya red light districts.

Ah yes nothing like pumping gas in my rental car at 2am on 8 Mile in Detroit after leaving the Coliseum.

My uncle owned a produce company and working for him I made regular trips to the Hunts Point market in the South Bronx, typically in the late evening to early morning hours. A guy once opened his trunk and offered to sell me dynamite. The trunk was full of that shit.

Coincidentally, my dad's manufacturing company was located just a few blocks outside the produce market, so there I also experienced that same area in the daytime. Back then, Hunts Point was an "interesting" place at any time, day or night. I saw a guy get stabbed in broad daylight once. I pretended not to notice and kept walking to the bodega where I was headed. Better not to get involved in such things.

I attended Seton Hall University in South Orange, NJ, and during those years became familiar with the Orange/Irvington clubs. Later, as a member of the National Guard, I was stationed in Newark. So although I grew up in a very nice town in NJ, I was accustomed to spending time in various ghettos and ghetto clubs. I always felt relatively comfortable in those areas. I guess familiarity provides a sense of security (probably a false sense).

The worst that ever happened was on my very first visit to the National Guard armory in Newark. I found the place (with a map, no GPS back then) and just as I was walking away from my car, a guy comes hauling ass around the corner. Apparently he had just robbed a liquor store. The owner chased him around the corner and started blasting away at the guy, who then shot back. I was pretty much right in the crossfire. I hit the ground and crawled into the street between two parked cars. I don't think either of those guys got shot, and the store owner was cursing in Spanish as he walked back where he came from. I got up, didn't have any holes in me, and continued on my way.

Another time we actually witnessed a guy get shot in the street, right in front of the Armory. The shooter took off and we called 9-1-1. The police station was only 1.5 blocks away, but for some reason it took them more than 20 minutes to get there. By that time, the guy's friends had long since picked him up off the ground and, I guess, drove him to a hospital. We told the cops that the shooter and the victim were both gone, and they were like "Ok, well it's over then" and just left.

Oh and downtown Minneapolis in 2020 was crazy. Just a bunch of roving bands of assholes breaking bottles fucking up cars. This was a couple months after the Floyd stuff. But it really never unfucked itself.

would Tijuana be considered a rough neighborhood? I'm there right now keeping my eyes open for the bandits with badges. much bigger danger than anything else I've ever encountered in my life.

would Tijuana be considered a rough neighborhood?

Lol @Jascoi, la zona norte, definitivamente. For me it's number 3 on the list of top 5 sketchiest and most dangerous neighborhoods the hobby has brought me to:

#5 - Inside the strip in Vegas near Spearmint Rhino. If you're brave enough, you can walk to SR from a hotel like the Venetian. This will take you outside of the well manicured paths of casinos, and into a neighborhood with pot shops, lingerie stores, and off course the club. It's like back alleys off the strip from 20 years ago, with the same distinctly stabby vibe.

#4 - Atlantic City, NJ. Let's acknowledge that this entire city is shady and just move on.

#3 - La Zona Norte, Tijuana, BC, Mex. It's gritty, there's dogs, dogshit, beggars, paraditas, and it's full of corrupt police who prey on the Zona's occupants and their penchant for cash.

#2 - The Block, Baltimore, MD. It's the only time I've ever looked at a Police Station and wondered, "how many people have died on the doorsteps of this establishment?"

#1 - Romulus, MI (home to Landing Strip). The DTW are still suffers a blight of declining industry and the whole area are DTW airport is depressed. The only time my life has ever been legitimately at risk at the club was in Romulus as I found myself outside the club at closing time, in like 14 degree weather, and stuck in and endless loop Uber cancellations. Absolutely terrifying.

@RonJax2 - I did that Vegas walk, forget what club I went to, it was 20 years ago. Walked past 3 cholos that looked to be eyeing me. I reached into my pocket (a bluff, I didn't have anything) and one said something like "it's OK, we're not gonna hurt you." That was the end of it.

Saw The Block in Baltimore but during the light of day. It looked run down but not dangerous.

Clubbed in Bridgeport at all hours. Kept my head on a swivel, there were a few young guys on doorsteps but I don't doll myself up to go clubbing (except cologne) nor stick my face in my stupid phone. No trouble. The bum outside Pleasant Moments was pretty cool to talk to. I've seen a couple fistfights, and once got told to leave by a certain time (might have been 7-8pm?) but you don't go there to watch a game with a couple beers. You go there to take care of business and fuck right back out.

Hit Vic's in Irvington driving through the area, but also during the day. I could see how it gets rough at night though.

^ You fellas can talk about rough neighborhoods all you like, I remember Hunts Point in the Bronx that mister orange is speaking about, at 3AM the market was busy with vendors and food buyers every morning, and the neighborhood around it was just as busy with drug dealers and whores soliciting, that area was so rough the police stayed in their station house unless they had a platoon with them.

Never really had a concern with The Block. Never say never, but there's always a lot of people (witnesses) around.
Like Puddy says, PM in Bridgeport is a pop in/pop out kind of deal, and I've always found a close parking spot.
Dumbest thing I ever did was walk from my hotel in downtown Stamford to Harry O's. Neighborhood declines just like that, and there were plenty of locals hanging out along the way who seemed to be sizing me up.

Which cologne is that @Puddy?

===> "Dumbest thing I ever did was walk from my hotel in downtown Stamford to Harry O's."

@Manuel: Dumb indeed, lol.

As far as your Bridgeport comment, PM isn't really where you have to watch your ass immediately outside the club. It's places like Bishop's Corner or Nikita's.

Funny the block has been mentioned in this thread a few times. Haven’t been but I’m trying to push myself to go/jump in on the deep end.

About 20+ years ago, I was in Syracuse, NY and thought I would checkout the Alpine on Butternut St. Nearing the club I passed through old run down areas with realtor Open House signs out front of houses with missing windows and missing front doors. Not good.

At the club, I learned to park only in the small lot out back or on the sidewalk next to the club, if you value your car. The club was open in the late afternoon and I was able to park in the lot. Later during happy hour the cops showed up and announced they didn't want to see any cars on the sidewalk when they returned.

A drunk female patron made a fuss claiming I knocked over her beer and wanted another one. Scam artist. One stage was so far away you couldn't really see it and the other was up close. The dancers looked good, but took forever to get to the up close stage. I got a lap dance in a small private area with a bouncer staring at us. A waste of money.

Left early, walked quickly to my car and drove passed a huge medical center. Stopped at a take out Italian restaurant with a couple of tables for sit down. Two cops were there ordering food. What could possibly go wrong? The counter guy suggested to the cops they get the house special of the day. They declined and left. I was standing behind the cops and told the counter guy that I would take the house special. He said that they were all out of the house special and now what do I want? Being the only customer there, I left with coffee.

I don't know if anything has changed for the better there and couldn't care if the club closed permanently.

Its all the same hookers just different venues