The bartender, wearing a choker and a thong, makes us drinks while a short, hairy man in a jockstrap bends over the bar and shakes his cheeks. The first floor looks like a vampire’s living room, with crystal chandeliers, more matte-black paint, and red velvet curtains. After we get past two hot, bitchy ticket girls in big hoop earrings, we enter the first bar area, where Robyn is playing and two boys are already eating each other’s faces on a barstool. Get used to it,” it looks not unlike a cartoon villain’s ironically conspicuous headquarters. With a giant golden Q on the front of the club and a lit marquee that reads “We’re queer. | We arrive at the Q, a four-floor matte-black building on Eighth Avenue, sandwiched between an already-closed deli and a number of Midtown gift shops selling souvenirs and electronics of questionable provenance. I must admit: I could really use a Pedialyte.ġ1:01 p.m. On Sunday, I noticed the club was throwing a “Labor Day Weekend Finale” in the form of an underwear party, so I called up that date to see if he’d show me around in his blue boxer briefs. “What are those?” a date asked me earlier in the week, after telling me he’d been to the Q. I was surprised to hear about so many Brooklyn gay boys traveling to Hell’s Kitchen for the Q who would never go to the neighborhood’s other staples: Therapy, Industry, even the Eagle. In that all-you-can-eat-buffet spirit, every room is somewhat queasily themed - the Disqo, the Qruise, the Speaqeasy, and the Qabaret (though each is nearly indistinguishable from the others). All summer, I’d heard word of this old-school gay playground, which, older gays tell me, hearkens back to the pre-Bloomberg era of midtown megaclubs, as well as to the sorts of multi-environment clubs long popular in other cities, from Minneapolis to Miami Beach. Rather, I received a number of morning-after texts that said something like, “I should’ve stayed home last night.” When the hot, horny summer felt like it was ending, and the world occasionally felt that way too, everyone kept apace - “Want another shot?” (Pfizer, please.)īy the time Sunday rolled around, without an invitation to someone’s beach house, tired and wanting to go somewhere new, I decided to head to the Q, a multilevel gay club in Hell’s Kitchen opened earlier this summer by Frankie Sharpe with the backing (at least on Instagram) of a handful of gay glitterati, including Billy Porter, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Carver, and Jake Shears. And yet, after partying all holiday weekend, I didn’t meet many people who had decided to take a night off. We keep going out anyway, of course, because God forbid we feel like we’re missing out on something, but nothing hits like it did back in June, when the whole summer was ahead of us and our energy reserves were still at 100 percent after our winter hibernation.
Now, The Q is officially welcoming guests after marking its grand opening with a series of sold-out events that closed out Pride Month.Well, along came Labor Day, and suddenly - and I don’t know about you - partygoing had started to feel … laborious. With Fluet’s construction and design experience-and help from celebrity investors like Billy Porter, Zachary Quinto, Charlie Carver, and Jake Shears, who represent various pillars of queer entertainment-the space came together without a hitch. Sharp, an award-winning event producer, nightlife curator, and DJ, had to put his new business venture on hold when COVID-19 forced New York into lockdown, but over the past several months, he and his business partners- Boxers co-owner Bob Fluet and party promoter Alan Picus-made up for lost time and pieced together The Q, a game-changing queer venue that caters to every interest. When we last spoke to Frankie Sharp in early 2020 to get his expert input on a guide to queer NYC, he let us in on a little secret: He was preparing to open a multi-floor LGBTQ nightclub in Hell’s Kitchen that would redefine the genre as we know it.