i've lived in manhattan for about...

i've lived in manhattan for about a year and a half, and i've never been to a strip club here until yesterday. it was the day after thanksgiving, and most of my buddies were out of town. so having nothing better to do, i decided to check out the hustler club. cover is normally $20 on a friday ($5 extra on sat/sun). i managed to snag a free pass from the village voice (good until end of dec). there's also a pass (pdf format) you can print out from www.hustlerny.com (good until end of nov). first off, this is a topless bar. i've come to the correlation that most clubs which serve booze usually are not full nude (exceptions include vegas and south florida). speaking of booze, i think i'm one of the few dudes that would rather not drink alcohol while at a strip club, but because this is new york city, i couldn't resist. during my visit, i had 3 vodka/redbulls at $12 a pop. yeah, i got fleeced. beers were going for $10. from what i gathered from talking to a few dancers, it was a pretty slow day in terms of number of patrons and dancers. there was only one main stage - each dancer would go 3 songs...first one clothed, last two topless. nothing to write home about - pretty ho-hum. there were probably 10+ dancers that night. a pretty good selection...good mix of white, black, and latin. didn't see any asians though. everyone was at least 7/10, with a few pretty smokin' blondes (my fav). i had a total of 5 dances with 3 dancers at $20 a dance. they had an occasional 2 for 1 deal (songs were definitely shortened) a la deja vu clubs. again, nothing to write home about...dances here were minimal contact. attempts to touch ass or boobs were quickly thwarted, and dancers would barely brush above mentioned anatomy against me. there was an upstairs vip area which i didn't have funds to test out. don't know how much better it would have been. i got to say i was actually annoyed with how hard it was to get a dance this night. surprisingly, i felt the dancers weren't soliciting dances enough. i guess it really was a slow day. i ran across a few nice dancers who would engage in conversation, but most were all about business, or would stick with their regulars. overall, not a bad night, but much left to be desired. final verdict: i could be convinced to go again, but free admission would be a definite requirement, and i'd look to avoid buying booze (though management might give me shit about that).