Crash Mansion: A Bar and Music Venue for Today's Manhattan

Crash Mansion sits at the end of Spring Street where it crosses the Bowery, tucked neatly away on a stretch of road that at first glance appears populated entirely by fabric emporiums and places to buy lamps. Across from it sits a building so run-down and covered in graffiti that it seems less a part of the newer, cleaner New York and more a part of a generic New York street set on an eighties-era Hollywood backlot. Stand in front of the club and look north on a sunny day, and you'll see a view of Manhattan skyscrapers jutting more or less out of nowhere, so beautiful and yet so fanciful that they come across at first as a cardboard façade placed on a random spot on the location. The point is that there is a certain amount of geographical incongruity to be accepted upon a visit here.

But it wasn't so long ago that the Bowery was noted more for its music halls than anything, and while a quick glance around the room will confirm a somewhat different sort of clientele, Crash Mansion prides itself on offering a centrally musical experience.

But you've got to get there first. A visitor to Crash Mansion may be surprised to note that the first thing one runs into is stairs-stairs heading down, no less. The bar and the music venue sit under Manhattan's expensive real estate, with a hip-hop restaurant called BLVD located upstairs that almost seems an afterthought. The real action of this club is of course under the street.

The space is decidedly tony, with stone pillars and rich red walls and a sleek bar also lined with solid rock; one is given the impression of an old mens' hunting lodge taken over by their grandchildren. Lights are kept low, with an assortment of swirly-twirly raver lights pooling over the dancing crowd; the arrangement of lights, much like the patrons, varies by show.

Between the bar and the little concert hall Crash Mansion can accommodate 350 festive, writhing partygoers, but as your correspondent noted at a concert for the rising Canadian fantasy-techno-Goth (it's an easier sound to enjoy than describe) band The Birthday Massacre, space becomes at a premium once the first fifty folks or so have arrived; the band has attracted a good crowd, but the space is small, and when everyone is pushing in front of you and lifting their hands up to take photos of the band for their Livejournals, the vertically challenged scenester may find herself excluded from some of the fun.

Seeing the band may prove problematic, but don't worry about hearing; this is a professional place, not open-mic night at your local watering hole, and the Web site boasts about its sound system for good reason. It's loud and it's clear.

The bar stocks all the usual treats and then some for the early-twenties crowd. Crowd control moves smoothly. It is difficult to tell by dress alone which of the young and beautiful are tending bar and which are partaking; this is a trendy place, and it wants you to know that. Patrons dress in blacks of varying textures; piercings are in evidence, and for the Birthday Massacre, hairstyles of numerous conceivable colors were also on display. The décor is classy and sexy, so try to fit in, each beautiful young thing seems to say as she closes her eyes and sways to synthesized music in her tight black pants.

Crash Mansion offers a fun experience for a night out, but not the atmosphere of a place one could go to for more than a special occasion. Looking out again over the bewildering assortment of sights outside, one is put in mind of the multinational hodgepodge of Disney World's EPCOT center, and it comes again when the smell of BLVD's combination of Latin and Asian cuisines hits your nostrils. Disney World may not be a bad example. It's a place you visit for fun, not to stay, or to make friends. But while you're there, everyone is there for the same reasons as you. Just be warned to get in line early.