This morning, Page Six reported the following quote from Amy herself:

"I have no idea where these rumors are coming from. We are really just renovating the space . . . It's just taking a lot longer than I had planned."

It's kinda like what Eater's Ben Leventhal reported on Friday!

"I just finally got the blockade reopened on the block after 3 long years! I am redoing the entire space to give it a facelift, that's really all. I am not closing.."

Which kinda corroborates a report someone else put together Thursday night!

The neighborhood's shed some of its worst clubs over the last year or so (Home, Guesthouse, Prime, and less recently: Stereo) and Sacco seems to be trying to position herself within that boneyard to re-launch Bungalow 8 as the hot destination it once reigned over New York as. We're also told that she was offered to go in on a club with someone else recognizing Bungalow's downturn in business, a sexy spot still in the construction phase looking for a leader. Sacco rebuffed their offer, letting them know that she's more than capable of doing it on her own. Burn.

Looks like that stupid reporter's source rolled him the same press line Sacco tested before hitting Eater and Page Six with it. So she's on point with the message. And for all we know, we have to take her at her word. But, real talk:

A re-launch is gonna be hard for Bungalow to pull off. The place used to be legendary, no question. In the pantheon of nightlife history's legends, Amy Sacco was one of, if not, truly the first woman to knock the boys off their feet.

Can you give an old club a new rope? The name means nothing anymore; it's like saying you're going to eat at Spago: Timeless, to be sure. But does anybody really give a shit? The biggest "big" club in town right now is Avenue. The trend is putting nightlife in a bunch of smaller spaces with insanely tight doors. Does it matter that she's going to be the only one left in a neighborhood left for dead? Wouldn't that be the kind of thing to work against her?

We'll find out. It's not like we're rooting for her to fail. If anything, Sacco's success is good for these pages: if the new Bungalow can be anything like the old one, there're plenty of awesomely ridiculous celebrity shitshows to fall out of there, literally.

But there's hope for Bungalow 8 yet. It can turn itself into something useful. Just today we learned that the former Limelight might go from being just one crappy store toa whole bunch of crappy stores. And maybe restaurants. Progress!

Studio 54
Era: 1977-1980
Past the Velvet Rope: A disco-fueled coke den with an balcony full of pre-AIDS wanton sex.
The Scene: Michael Jackson, Liza Minnelli, Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, and Halston fighting over the last bump.
What It Is Now: A theater.

Danceteria
Era:1982-1984
Past the Velvet Rope: An artsy after hours that was more about grit than glamour.
The Scene: Madonna passed out on the floor after a coat check shift, Keith Haring working as a cocktail waiter. Lots of New Wave.
What It Is Now: Apartments

Area
Era: 1983-1987
Past the Velvet Rope: You never knew. Every six weeks Jennifer Goode redesigned the space to fit a specific theme.
The Scene: Basquiat installing some crazy piece of art, Michael Musto when he used to be a club kid.
What It Is Now: A fond memory.

Limelight
Era: 1983-1985 with a resurgence from 1994-1996
Past the Velvet Rope: An old Gothic church tricked out into several amazing spaces.
The Scene: The first time around celebs too uptown for downtown, the second time around Michael Alig and his crazy-dressed cohorts.
What It Is Now: A ramshackle store.

Tunnel
Era: 1987-1991
Past the Velvet Rope: A long, cavernous room with a booming sound system.
The Scene: The beginnings of the superclub scene, lots of E.
What It Is Now: A restaurant.

Twilo
Era: 1996-1999
Past the Velvet Rope: We did too much K, we can barely remember, but there were some stairs and a big dance floor and a very '90s futuristic VIP room.
The Scene: Ravers, glow sticks, Junior Vasquez, Chelsea queens, the '90s.
What It Is Now: It was BED, and then we lost track.

Bungalow 8
Era: 2001-2004
Past the Velvet Rope: A California Bungalow, with palm trees, banquettes, and a concierge service that would get you whatever you wanted.
The Scene: People so fabulous and wealthy you wouldn't even know their names. Until the B&T invaded the Meatpacking and scared them all away.
What It Is Now: Closing.

Marquee
Era: 2005-2007
Past the Velvet Rope: A balcony, a dance floor, lots of banquettes, tiny tiny tables.
The Scene: The height of the bottle service era as Paris Hilton, Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan and others dance on said banquettes.
What It Is Now: Sad, and full of B&T.

The Box
Era: 2006-2008
Past the Velvet Rope: A neo French bordello with the focus on the infamous stage, but really just dark and full of cigarette smoke.
The Scene: The hippest of the downtown, with artist types getting ready to check out naked people in the infamous shows.
What It Is Now: Recovering from the economic meltdown.

The Beatrice Inn
Era: 2007-2009
Past the Velvet Rope: It was small and cramped and the ceiling was low.
The Scene: Olsens, hipsters, skinny jeans, smoking, and watery drinks.
What It Is Now: Empty.

The Jane Hotel
Era: Right this second until about two weeks from now.
Past the Velvet Rope: A small lounge that opens up into a bigger room. Very luxe and loungey.
The Scene: Everyone from Hugh Grant to Kirsten Dunst has boogied here and woken up the neighbors.
What It Is Now: Embattled.

Out of the blue, Luciano made a phone call to the New York Observer's Spencer Morgan, who wrote the original story about him, and is now writing this weirdo little follow up as well, thankfully. Before Spencer could meet they guy in person, he got an email from someone who said they'd run into Luciano last month in Washington Square Park, and struck up a conversation and spent the afternoon with him until he started acting bizarro:

At one point he comes up to me, and asks if a woman I know is a lesbian. I said no. I am off talking to another friend, when I see him talking to that woman, and apparently he had asked her if she was a lesbian. Clearly upset, she tells him to get away, she doesn't want to speak to him, that he was being rude. He further continues to justify his inquiry, boasting how its ok that she is gay, his uncle is gay, he knows lots of gay people and how she looks very masculine. Because she wouldn't entertain his nonsense, he got very agitated and angry and started to scream at her and those around, you are all peasants. He should give that woman money to get plastic surgery to make her look more like a woman.
I stood there in shock, then he comes up to me, and is grabbing my arms...trying to plead with me how my friend attacked him. I was trying to calm him down, telling him, I am sorry, I do not think we can be friends...
He clearly is a sociopath and believes his lies. Much of what you wrote in your article, he told me about. His brother a banker, his sister a model, whom has an Italian police officer as a boyfriend. He claims to live in an Central Park West apartment. He told me that he just got out of rehab for cocaine. He was an interesting person.

Sounds interesting, yes! If you've run into Giovanni, or, indeed, if you are Giovanni, drop us an email, because we like bizarre stories just as much as the next guy. Read the whole tale at The Observer. [Pic via]

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.A few years ago, Amy Sacco was the hottest nightlife impresario in New York. Now, we hear, Bungalow 8— the once celebrity-heavy club that was Sacco's crown jewel—has stopped paying its employees. Is she totally broke this time?

Today we spoke to DJ Rafael, who DJ'd at Bungalow 8 about twice a week for the past three years. Two weeks ago, he finally quit. Since late January, he says, the club has paid its employees only "here and there." And since March or so, it's barely paid any salaried employees at all.

Rafael says he's personally owed "thousands." And, he says he's not the only one. For most of this year, Bungalow has only been paying its employees intermittently, at best. He hears that some kitchen workers have received no money at all for months. Many employees are trying to hang on and hope for the best because of the terrible job market, but, he says of Bungalow, "They're broke and they need to close."

The image associated with this post is best viewed using a browser.Of course, Sacco's empire has been dying for at least a year now. Her Bungalow 8 expansion to London got a tepid reception; her NYC restaurant Bette closed abruptly last summer; Josh Stein wrote a semi-requiem for her in Page Six Magazine.

But the death of Bungalow 8 would mean the party is really over. It doesn't sound good. If you're an employee owed money, email us and tell us your story.

In contrast to Ivanka's father, the pair operate discreetly. I witnessed them not uttering a word of protest when turned away from George Clooney's Armani party at Manhattan's Bungalow 8 nightclub in May.

Way to deploy an underhanded compliment, Guardian!

Nightlife embarrassments aside, we're left wondering where the 40 percent revenue increase came from and where the hell it's gone. Is it from the expanded real estate coverage? And if so, what has that revenue stream been looking like over the past, say, six months?

Is the revenue being spent — as it must, since the losses are still there — perhaps online? The Observer is planning a nationwide expansion for its Politicker political blogging franchise (not a bad idea), but it's not clear if capital has been deployed on that yet.

In any case, perhaps the city's club owners could be persuaded to treat young Kushner with a bit more care. After all, we'd hate to see him decide he's not having any fun and go all Ron Burkle one of the last remaining subsidized print operations.

Sacco's rise to fame is familiar by now. She's just a Jersey girl who came to New York City, worked in the restaurant business, and made some important friends who eventually bankrolled her first club, Lot 61. She hit her peak with the opening of Bungalow 8 in 2001, which succeeded in turning the once-barren area of West Chelsea into the club capital of New York—to the point of destroying the exclusivity and isolation of the neighborhood that helped attract the top models and A-list celebrities to Sacco's clubs in the first place.

But Sacco's more recent history is one of unmistakable decline. She opened a Bungalow 8 in London, which received (and still receives) a tepid reception from the locals. Bette, the restaurant Sacco opened as a "neighborhood joint" near her own Chelsea apartment, closed without warning earlier this summer. She got a slew of nightlife and image consulting jobs that, while lucrative, aren't nearly as glamorous as her former life as an NYC tastemaker. And she says she's simply getting tired of it all:

After three decades in the game, she was bored and worn out. As Amy admits, “If I’m bored, I’m just miserable and I think that translates.”...

“I’m in Vegas, London and New York,” Amy says, “and I’m adding to my calendar. I definitely want to go to Dubai.” When she’ll return home is unclear. She’s been renting an apartment in London since November. “Certain people bitch and moan because I’m not in New York,” she says, “but I can’t be everywhere. I deserve to have a life.”

Now she has a new, younger boyfriend—London chef Andrew Lasseter—and says vaguely that she's "gone into hedge funds and finance." That presumably would help with the $179,000 tax lien leveled on her apartment, which Stein says may or may not be cleared up by now.

Of course, money shouldn't really be a problem for Sacco now. She talks about wanting to "reap the fruits of my labor," and no one would deny her the privilege. But that may involve her acknowledging that her moment is past, and ceding the nightlife crown to a new generation. Bungalow 8 is no longer hot in New York, and Sacco's decision to take the club to London rather than, say, Vegas when it was still popular may have cost her the chance to cash in on brand at its height.

People get older, and stop clubbing as much. In the same way, club moguls see their popularity wane as their proprietary crowd gives way to newer, younger stars. So what? Amy Sacco can either move into the more serene field of hotels, like Ian Schrager, or hang it up altogether. Less buzzing around is usually a healthy thing.

[P6 Mag]

Sacco: "Bungalow 8 London is more like the sophisticated European sister of New York."

Reviewer: "damn right! There are many worthwhile ways to spend your £350 in London - this isn't one of them. You've read the reviews - they are accurate. It is nothing like Bungalow 8 NYC which was so much fun a few years ago..."

Sacco: "And the downstairs opens at eleven o’clock, Tuesday through Saturday, and it’s much more of a clubby vibe than we have in New York."

Reviewer: "I'm a fair person....So I tried EVERY night in the week at Bungalow 8, and I'm talking weekend, early, midnight til late.... and it was a DISASTER....spent over £500 each night on champagne. Waste of money if you ask me."

Reviewer: "The place is very disappointing time after time. Specially compared to other clubs I have membership with. The music is cliche and dull. The members are like a bunch of estate agents, the place itself is like a corridor and the drinks are overpriced. A lot of hot air. I would rate the club lounge at Heathrow Airport higher than this place."

Etc.

[BlackBook, View London]

A tipster to Eater says:

At Bette last night for the closing party. I live and work in the area and dined there fairly regularly. The bartender told me that Amy Sacco sold the restaurant and gave the staff about 8 hours notice.

Cold. Why, we remember a few years back when we were talking about Sacco's "quest for total domination," and HBO was planning a story about her rise to fame. She had so much success in the city, she said she'd rather die than return to her native Jersey.

Then things started to slowly go downhill. Rumors flew that Sacco was stiffing her PR agency; the usual suspects started placing bets on when Bungalow 8 would close. Her doorman struck out on his own. She tried to export her magic to London, but failed to find the same popularity.

Sacco recently called New York nightlife—and herself—"overrated." Now she's been proven right.

Sure, Sacco can count on visiting Americans: movie producer, Harvey Weinstein, threw a party there after the Bafta award gala on Sunday, drawing director Ridley Scott, cross-dressing comedian Eddie Izzard and actress Kate Hudson, among others. But most nights the place is empty. The commenters on View, a local London site, are harsh: "Anyone who has been to Bungalow 8 in London knows what it is really like - an enlarged Manolo Blahnik shoe box, empty, I might add except for a few squat stools. Dull." Sacco had better, as she promised, start dancing on the table tops.

The responses were predictably... you know what, sometimes there just aren't any words. Well, except these, from 40 year old beret-wearer Jacqie Venable:

I don't see myself as an American," she said. "I see myself as a child of a higher being, and I feel privileged to walk this earth with my daughter and my family. The war in Iraq just reminds me of my everyday war. The only way that I can make a difference is being really grateful for the good, the bad, the ugly—what I can do for me. If I'm straight and I love everybody in a grateful world, that's the only contribution I can make. And I can teach that to my daughter."

I asked what she'd rather be talking about.

"My daughter. Shoes. Handbags. Fashionistas to laugh at. Waxing the undercarriage—from your poonnany to your back door. It's fucking painful."

The Hit of the Party [NYDN]
Related: Fabian Basabe Wishes What Happens in the Hamptons Stays in the Hamptons

Tune in tomorrow as Fabian continues his quest to matter.

Side Dish [R&M (last item)]

Go easy on the booze. You never see Donald Trump falling down the stairs. Youth is no excuse, by the way. Being that drunk only works when you re in college. After that, you ve got to grow up.

Glamour