A BRIEF HISTORY OF JACKIE 60
"This creativity factory delivers the most fantastic nightlife in the
city." -Time Out New York
Zurich's Cabaret Voltaire began the 20th century of inventive
nightlife and New York's Jackie 60 finished it with a spectacular finale
three days before the century's end. Jackie 60 was begun in 1990 by
local night life luminaries Chi Chi
Valenti and Johnny
Dynell, dancer/ choreographer Richard Move and London
fashion designer Kitty Boots. Disillusioned with the stale,
over-commercialized state of the New York night, the four set out to
create a club environment that was performance oriented and distinctly
underground in tone. Beginning at the 14th Street nightclub Nell's, they
developed the Jackie 60 formula, with its weekly themes and live,
stream-of-consciousness M.C.s. In March 1991, the Jackies moved their
newborn Tuesdays-only club to a small bar in the then-seedy Meat Market
district, which later became the underground venue MOTHER.
To its fanatical mixed following (some of whom had abandoned clubs
decades ago), Jackie 60 fast became a Mecca. The club assumed a level
of audience sophistication unparalleled in Gotham, and Jackie regulars
from designer Marc Jacobs to pop supernova Debbie Harry consistently
rose to the challenge. Every week, the club's decor, performers and
soundtrack were transformed according to theme, which varied from
Hasidic hip-hop (Fiddler In The Hood) to classic murder (A New Year's
Most Foul) to supermodel angst (Pooped-Out Party Girls.)
As the decade moved on, the creative explosion in and around Jackie
mushroomed. Jackie's monthly Verbal Abuse midnight poetry soirees gave
birth to the literary zine (and later the e-zine) of the same name.
Several hit dance records bore the unmistakeable live Jackie sound
(featuring the clubs "Jackie MC's" including Paul Alexander.) Jackie's
Playhouse, the clubs theatrical wing, staged original plays and
adaptations (most notably those penned by Valenti and Michael Musto,
including the seminal Cokewhore and The JonBenet Ramsey Story.) The
Jackie Hackers series (a club-computer laboratory begun in 1992) birthed
the INTERJACKIE site in 1995 (one of the first and most poular
underground club websites, now archived on the massive mothernyc.com
site.)
Jackie 60 had come far from its beginnings as a group of friends
entertaining each other, but remained insistently true to them.
Something happened every Tuesday that was unexplainable, a "communal
club reality" with its own logic and its own star system. Empress
Domination came the closest on the liner notes for The Jackie Hustle
EP- "They live for Jackie because she's little dark, and different.
They live for Jackie, because she feels like New York again."
By 1996, Valenti, Dynell and their merry band had outgrown the
once-a-week time slot and their limited production facilities. Backed
with little more than Jackie 60's legend, the couple took over the
run-down premises on West 14th Street where Jackie "lived" and tackled
their greatest challenge to date - to apply "Jackie Family Values" to a
full-time nightclub. From MOTHER's opening in 1996 until her closing
in June 2000, she was the epicenter of Gotham's nocturnal creativity,
where others learned the rarified art of creating imaginative club
nights. The Jackie Factory team (now joined by Pyramid Club co-founder
HATTIE HATHAWAY) continued to create their international night life
landmark anew every Tuesday and MOTHER also housed several Jackie
offshoots including the cyber-fetish weekly Click + Drag (born of
Interjackie) and Move's Bessie Award-winning dance performance series
Martha @ MOTHER.
In March 1999, her producers announced that Jackie 60 would close as a
weekly party at century's end - December 28, 1999. The final night, a
thousand celebrants came out for the glorious ending to a club
experience that had spanned (and helped to define) a decade. The last
year of Jackie 60 Tuesdays were filmed by JACK GULICH for THE JACKIE
MOVIE, a documentary focusing on the club's performers and regular
audience that has been in post production ever since.
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