Outside The Box: Seeing Who Saw Kanye West Last Night

by Nate Freeman

Like the vast majority of Americans, I did not get in to the secret dress-up Kanye West show at The Box last night. The stone-faced doormen were wrapped in dark suits and clutching umbrellas-the umbrellas that doubled as canes, swung toward the ground, whenever the intermittent drizzling receded. The door would open every minute or two, and you could hear echoed bits of sound. First you heard the thin remnants of the voice of Kanye West. Then, if the doorman lingered a bit longer, you could make out a beat, or a synth tone, and the song title would come immediately. Kanye doing “Get ‘Em High.” Kanye doing “American Boy” with Estelle. Or Kanye doing something brand new.

“No, no, no, no-not there, here,” the bouncer said as she gestured us away from the entrance to The Box, and toward the railing in front of Kush, the place adjacent to the Lower East Side faux-cabaret smut factory. It was 1:45 a.m.

Simon Hammerstein walked through his door. He’s the club’s owner, and heir to the theater family famous for an different kind of entertainment-I don’t remember the Von Trapp family engaging in any dildo acrobatics in “The Sound of Music.” He was wearing a French-cuffed shirt with three buttons undone-the rest were affixed with black studs. He had a pocket square at his left breast and parted his hair to the right. He kept his beard neat, and put his hand on my bouncer, who was dealing with a couple trying to get in.

Simon reiterated the bouncer’s denial. “I’m your boss,” he said, pointing at his man. Then he went inside.

I asked how the Kanye West was going.

“I don’t know nothing about this,” the bouncer said and directed me toward the front again, where a more senior member of the Box Security Team was pacing. By the rope was a girl who insisted she was on the list, and pecked at a Blackberry, trying to prove it. I approached one of the men.

So, like, Kanye, right? How is Simon dealing with all this extra craziness? “Love Lockdown” bled through the cracked door.

“I’m not at liberty to debate it right now,” he said, and shooed me back toward Kush. There, The Box people had corralled the smokers on the block-”the neighbors are sleeping”-whether or not they were at the show or not.

It was 2:45 a.m. “Let’s go to Kenmare!” someone said to his bros. Silence. “No? What’s the plan then?”

Another dude fist bumped the bouncer-”my man!”-as he has a cigarette with a girl. Another group had been at the Rihanna show at Madison Square Garden earlier. They weren’t exactly ecstatic about the Kanye’s performance.

“I thought Beyoncé was gonna show up!” one of them said.

“Jay-z did a show tonight uptown at-oh, what is it?-Radio City,” said another.

“That’s probably where Beyoncé is,” said the first. “Everyone thought she was gonna be here.”

More walking-talking pocket squares dragged their arm candy out the side door and hailed cabs. A girl standing by herself pouted and asked me which way to 1 Oak. I told her it’s not really a walking distance. She tried to get me into the cab with her but I declined.

By 3:30 a.m., the block was nearly cleared.

“You haven’t missed much,” one guy said, over a smoke, waiting for his crew to come out so they can head elsewhere. “Does anyone in there really care? It’s just another night at The Box.”