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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Nightlife in New York City, depleted for the last year and a half, it's making its way back. In some neighborhoods, roaring back maybe. It's a big enough piece of the city's economic and cultural engine that they have an Office of Nightlife at City Hall. Last month, they released their first-ever comprehensive report looking back on its three years of existence, what's been accomplished, and looking ahead to what comes next.

Joining me now to discuss that report, including one idea for the future, special districts with 24-hour day bars that has New Yorkers talking, is Ariel Palitz, senior executive director of New York City's Office of Nightlife at the Mayor's Office of Media and Entertainment. That's too long a title Ms. Palitz, so I'll just say welcome to WNYC.

Ariel Palitz: Tell me about it. Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you. I appreciate you having me today.

Brian: For people who may not know about what the Office of Nightlife is since it is fairly new, three years, could you talk a little bit about what the office does, why it was set up and your role heading it up? Is it all about nightclubs and bars or does it encompass all entertainment like theater or what?

Ms. Palitz: Well, the Office of Nightlife was created, and at the time, many people asked why do we need an Office of Nightlife. The real answer is, why haven't we always had one? To your point, nightlife is one of our city's greatest assets, locally and around the world. The purpose of our office is really to represent this industry in a dedicated fashion as a non-enforcement liaison between the industry, and the community, and the city. It's really important because there are, as you know better than most, many issues around this vibrant industry that need to be addressed. I think the pandemic itself really simply amplified that.

Brian: You outlined some of what you learned in this report from a listening tour and focus groups, including that rents are high and red tape is onerous. We hear that from callers all the time who own venues. What are the particular challenges of nightlife venues that other small businesses might not be dealing with? We certainly hear red tape all the time from all kinds of small business owners and rents are high as well.

Ms. Palitz: Yes, that's right. That's a universal issue. What the report does and what we did during that initial phases of the creation of the Office of Nightlife, when we went on our five borough listening tour, and focus groups, and through our casework, is to really help to identify what are the issues in nightlife for workers, owners, performers, patrons, as well as residents? The issues are vast. How can a small office like this really choose and focus on the priorities?

After that outreach and listening, what we really deduced the issues that really affect this industry and community are yes, supporting business development and recovery, dealing with of course, commercial rent, and bureaucracy. The improvement of quality of life, that's something very unique to life at night and the nightlife industry. As well as, another focus is promoting safety, equity, and harm reduction as well as how do we promote and elevate this nightlife culture to a place of prominence that it deserves?

Brian: Can you talk a little bit, since you mentioned quality of life, about the Lower East Side quality of life improvement plan that you've been involved with, and the progress it has made? I know from one of my friends who lives down there that that neighborhood really is roaring back in terms of people going out and trying to make up for lost time after the pandemic. Of course, the pandemic is still going on, but there's a surge of people going out on the Lower East Side. I gather, among other things, that's causing more conflict with neighbors regarding outdoor dining noise, and things like that.

Ms. Palitz: Well, the Lower East Side is a very unique and vibrant neighborhood. It was, before the pandemic. I myself owned a venue in that area. I served on that community board, on the liquor licensing committee for a long time. I'm intimately aware of the give-and-take of the conversation, and the quality of life issues there and they're real, and they need to be addressed. Before the pandemic, I chose that neighborhood to pilot the Lower East Side Quality of Life Improvement Plan to see how can we look at city resources, like sanitation, parking, enforcement, and realign city agencies and services to specifically address life at night and to orchestrate it, if you will?

For example, those streets are rather narrow, and even more narrow now with outdoor dining, and so difficult for cars to get through, horn honking. That raises tension, raises sound, and it's extraordinarily vibrant area. We found before the pandemic that by changing the parking regulations at the time, and not having parking on both sides of the streets at night so that there was more room for cars to go through. Changing the sanitation pickup from 12:00 AM to past 4:00 AM after the bars close.

It's not always necessarily that there's too much nightlife or that nightlife is the villain per se, but it's really about realigning and orchestrating city resources like we do for a parade, or a festival, or for a fireworks show. We know that New York can handle large groups of people that go in and out of a place safely, quietly, and beautifully. That's really what the Office of Nightlife aims to do, is to really put focus on reimagining and redeploying city resources for life at night because it does have unique issues.

Brian: Listeners, we can take a few phone calls for Ariel Palitz of the city's Office of Nightlife. Maybe a nightlife venue owner of some kind wants to call in, maybe a patron wants to call in, maybe a neighbor of such a venue wants to call in? 646-435-7280, 646-434-7280. Let me ask you about this recommendation in the report that your office released that's breaking out a little bit in the press, that suggested that the city try to live up to its nickname, the city that never sleeps, meaning, consider creating 24-hour entertainment districts. What does that mean?

Ms. Palitz: Well, it's in line with what I just mentioned regarding the aligning of city resources. In this particular case, it is really about-- first of all, it's not an original idea. I would love to be able to take credit for it but there's over 60 nightlife offices around the world. I'm not sure many people know that this is part of a global movement. There are 24-hour districts in places like Amsterdam, Berlin, London. We see in New Orleans, Miami. The point of it is not to create a overwhelming party environment. There's actually quality of life improvement, sociability improvement implications in a model like this.

For example, for the Lower East Side, as we mentioned, it could very well actually draw people out of residential areas with high residencies. I think that it would help to organize and deploy the city resources that would be needed to be able to control and to manage really, rather than control, large crowds. I think it would bring tremendous vibrancy to the city that would draw people from around the world, but also, really, an amazing asset for locals. I think more than anything, it would also help to reduce, what is already after hours that are already happening, and bring some of the nightlife out of the shadows, which would in essence, make it safer as well.

Brian: Who would it serve aside from the folks who don't want to call it a night at 4:00 AM?

Ms. Palitz: Who would it serve aside from? Well, it would serve New York at large. It is so incredibly important that we bring our tourism back, that we draw people to New York for all the reasons they've always come back.

I think what you've seen when we have spoken about this, and again, this 24-hour recommendation is one of over 20 recommendations we have in the report. It's really, the whole report itself is about revitalizing, re-imagining, creative solutions, perhaps even re-purposing some of the vacant commercial storefronts and also first, second, third floors that we might have. We have to really re-imagine New York, and have creative ideas and creative solutions. This is one of those creative solutions, one of many that we proposed.

Brian: Dimitri in Harlem, that runs an art collective on the Lower East Side, Dimitri on WNYC. Hi.

Dimitri: Hi there. I don't run the collective. I'm a part of it.

Brian: Sorry. Got you.

Dimitri: That's all right. My question for your guest is--

Brian: I guess nobody runs a collective. [laughs]

Dimitri: Very funny. Well yes, someone does, there is a manager, her name's Amanda, but that's not the point. This art collective, it's on Bowery, it's called Bowery Union. Well, it's on Broome, off of Bowery. My question is how the collective can be more part of the neighborhood in terms of-- it's a pretty big space. I don't know if you know, it used to be the Whitebox gallery, so it was a lot of space there, and it's really great for exhibitions and events, but I want to have this, as a prominent member of the collective, to really engage in education, art classes or things like that with the neighborhood or other things, maybe even things I haven't thought of. I would like to hear suggestions how--

Brian: Your question is how do you get more connected with community groups and things like that? Is that your question?

Dimitri: Yes, and in what ways, like I'd like to hear the variety of ways. I'm only thinking of education, which is already great and important, and maybe there are other ways.

Brian: Ariel Palitz, is that something you can help with?

Ms. Palitz: Well, I think what we-- first of all, what you guys are doing is so essential to New York culture. Really, it's all of the subculture, and underground parties, and collectives, this is where, what New York is famous for. This is where jazz, and hip hop, and it is the essence of who we are, and it is essential that this office and our city really appreciates and supports these collective movements. In our report, you can see the different ways that we make recommendations to make it easier for temporary event permits, and conditional occupancy that makes it easier to be able to get permitting, and more affordable.

To answer your question particularly, what we saw, of course this pandemic has been extremely brutal for us in so many ways, but one of the things that emerged were so many different industry collectives that had artists, and operators, and community members aligning with each other to use their collective voice, their collective creativity and power. I think it's important that these collectives continue well past the pandemic, but also to align with each other. There, we saw of course with NIVA, the National Venue Association. We have a New York chapter, NYIVA, that was instrumental in the Save our Stages movement. We have New York City Nightlife United. We have SaveNYC.

Brian: I'm going to sneak in one more caller, Cal in Bed-Stuy, we have time for a 20-second question and a 20-second answer. Cal, go for it.

Cal: Okay. Thank you. I am a manager of a place called The Living Gallery, that's been on Broadway in Brooklyn for nine years. I guess I'm really curious about, you briefly mentioned like re-purposing storefronts that aren't being used, because I know a lot of people, I know, there's so many empty storefronts, and there's landlords just asking for amounts that people just can't do, especially.

Brian: In our last 20 seconds, Ms. Palitz, how can people make that match, groups that want to repurpose storefronts and getting them?

Ms. Palitz: Well, I'll have to get back to you on that answer, but I think the universal answer is that this office and this city, really it's essential that we support, respect, and do everything we can to make sure this industry, both commercial as well as the DIYs, be fully restored and to thrive again.

Brian: That unfortunately has to be the last word. Ariel Palitz, who runs the city's Office of Nightlife. Thank you so much.

Ms. Palitz: Thank you.

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