What the bosses at Soho House hope is that they won't squeeze out the very character they sought in this part of town.

Whoops.

It was roughly two seconds later that the Meatpacking District began its quick morph into a playground for the faux-rich and skanky. Things officially died on August 24, 2003 — the day the club made its inevitable appearance on Sex and the City, the now-defunct HBO series that we've to blame for a decent part of this mess, having sold midwestern girls everywhere on the fantasy of a swan's lifestyle on a journalist's salary. And yet Soho House quietly remains in a quasi-exclusive pose, unjustifiably and inexplicably. What follows is a rough guide to understanding a building filled with the ghosts of 2003.

First, the basics:
To gain entry, you've got to be recommended by two other members and fork over annual fees of $1400 (plus the ubiquitous $200 registration fee). Entrance is difficult but not impossible; the level of exclusivity is in a different orbit than that of Bungalow 8 - more businesslike, yet with a dash of cocaine and alcoholism — which might explain why the joint is overrun with skeezy banker types and not the chic celebs and media darlings who its owner might've preferred.

The members:
Founding members include debatable celebrities like Ethan Hawke and Alan Cumming, plus your usual famous-for-NYC types like Nicole Aragi and Lucy Sykes. There are still some boldfacers who pop in here and there: Jude and Sienna, Jack Nicholson, Vince Vaughn, and Adam Sandler. But nowadays, you're more likely to see anonymous 30-somethings who like eurotrash or imitation eurotrash, whose vague amount of disposable income falls above the club's membership fees but below a decent summer rental. These people include your spastic real estate broker or your douchebag neighbor whose Pete Tong Pure Pacha CD is on permanent repeat. Women tend to resemble cheap knockoffs of models, but they are few and fleeting — the club is said to be aggressively pursuing new female members with media backgrounds, though management is apparently unaware that only a select few female media-types could actually afford membership. And then there's the guy who wanders around wearing Hawaiian print shirts, refers to himself as "the mayor," and will steal your chaise the second you stand up.

The venue:
Arguably, the rooftop pool is the House's main allure, though it's a fraction of the size it would seem. Roughly larger than a luxury bathtub, it's a family-friendly hell during the morning hours and, come afternoon, resembles a party at the MTV Beach House. Inside, the restaurant and bar prides itself on overpriced, mediocre food*, served by staffers who alternate between surly and sycophantic (and who, according to rumor, just might steal your credit card). The Drawing Room is where most members go to be jostled about and balance themselves on the edges of crowded leather couches, and the Games Room is where one might smoke and play pool in an uncomfortably small space. Private rooms are reserved for special events, such as the fight between Ian Spiegelman and Doug Dechert at Toby Young's book party.

Getting in:
Nowadays, the door policy remains "strict," but having your wasted friend upstairs call down to the front desk and drop a member's name should be all it takes to get in. Granted, this requires having someone who's already inside the club, but rest assured, you want it that way. The only thing that makes Soho House even mildly tolerable is the presence of your friends — though, if they're actually hanging out at the club, you might want to reconsider the friendship, as they are obvious social climbers aspiring to a lifestyle marked by indiscernable accents, artfully mussed hair and striped shirts with the top two buttons calculatedly unbuttoned.


*Veteran readers might recall that Gawker's obsession with the venue's crappy fruit cocktail cost Gawker alum Choire Sicha his club membership — to which we say, how the fuck were you affording that, Bloggy McSugartits?

Next: Buddakan, Del Posto, Craftsteak.

Earlier: Principal Hells: Florent, Hogs & Heifers, Pastis, Meatpacking District: The Video Overture

Now understand, it hurts us to be mean to Gansevoort Street's Florent. Founder and proprietor Florent Morellet really is one of the most genteel and friendly New York queens you're likely to meet, and we've spent several indecently late nights/early mornings nodding off over a platter of Florent's half-mangled home fries. And this place has legitimate neighborhood credibility, given Florent's appearance at a time when the underground clubs in the area really did get raided by the cops. And if you must go, it's a relief to find that many of the more objectionable Meatpacking dwellers rarely venture this way, especially if you hit the place at 4 a.m. or later. But really, everyone knows that Florent's days are numbered. Other, far less respectable and more Meatpacking-typical joints are popping up on Gansevoort, and sooner or later, they will crowd out and choke off original fauna like Florent. Morellet needs to either sign a 99-year lease or start examining his options to relocate out of the encroaching black hole. We want to keep that home fries option open, but we're less and less willing to hack our way through the Meatpacking District's surrounding hellhole.

On, then, to a much less beloved institution: Hogs & Heifers. This dive bar on Washington and 13th still attracts a slightly amusing though meager crowd of winos, skanks, and other hard-luck types during early weeknight evenings, but even these fringe-dwellers are repulsed by the more regular clientele. Far more common are mobs of sweaty losers from all walks of life who come for the shitty freedom rock on the juke and the oh-so-sassy barmaids. Sometimes those chicks even dance on the bar! And use profanity! We could untangle the tediously incestuous genealogy between Hogs & Heifers and other dancin' barmaid dives Red Rock West and Coyote Ugly, but who really cares. The bouncers routinely eject a certain percentage of the drunks merely to meet fire code occupancy maximums, giving each happy tourist the idea that he's a real rough customer. Let's be clear: Dive bars are not supposed to be fun. They're supposed to be depressing, which causes you to drink abusively until you think you're having fun. Anything else is a cruel joke with no punchline.

And lastly, let's look at Pastis. Restaurateur Keith McNally opened Soho's Balthazar brasserie in 1997, and its success eventually prompted the creation of Pastis in the Meatpacking District. A near-clone of Balthazar, Pastis (cloned again in 2003 for Schiller's Liquor Bar on the LES) represented one of the first heavyweight dining investments in the area, and oh how it's paid off. Much of the Meatpacking District's other development has radiated off of Pastis's corner at Little West 12th Street, spawned by relentless attention from local glitterati, visiting celebs, and brunching yuppies. Brunch is in fact the only time one should ever go near this place, and that only if you can get your ass in gear to appear before 11 a.m.; otherwise, prepare to fight with not one but two sets of clipboard-wielding hostfolk, one at the door and another holding court at a lectern in mid-restaurant. (Best advice: ignore the first person and focus on the lectern, where true seating power resides.) The coffee is still quite good, but the food is overpriced and served with mechanical tedium. After all, they know they'll pack the tables with rubes, so why bother bringing the A-game to the kitchen. Also one of the few places with the balls to actually predict a "three-hour plus" wait for a table, in case, you know, you want to wait at the bar or something.

Next in Principal Hells: Soho House.

Earlier: Meatpacking District: The Video Overture, Being a History of the Meatpacking District

[Photo: markaragnos]

And because we couldn't make the case just with boring old words, enjoy the above teaser for forthcoming video clips of Meatpacking District inhabitants, exhibiting natural behavior in their normal, reprehensible environment. Much more later, but this should give you an idea of the pain and suffering we endured to bring you this exclusive material.

1524: Florentine navigator Giovvani da Verrazzano becomes first person of Italian descent to visit area; gets handjob from drunken local after claiming to be "a large personne in the Spice trades."

1525: Black, Portuguese pilot Esteban Gomez visits area; is immediately taunted with variety of Italian slurs for dark-skinned produce Lenape picked up from Verrazzano.

1568: First reported crossing of Hudson by Englishman; historians date eventual establishment of Soho House to this moment.

1626: New Netherland Director General Peter Minuit purchases Manhattan from local tribes for $24 plus promise to buy at least two bottles of Cristal in V.I.P. lounge.

1664: Director General Peter Stuyvesant surrenders New Amsterdam to the English; King Charles II declares territory "an area forewith to which we will send our most wretched, unpleasant personages"; early progenitors of various Sykes siblings sit up and take notice.

1884: Gansevoort Market, named after Revolutionary War figure Peter Gansevoort, opens. (Gansevoort, interestingly enough, was Herman Melville's grandfather, and thus an antecedent of Moby, whom you knew had to have something to do with this.) Although originally a general open-air vending area, the market eventually grows to be one of the largest animal-slaughtery locations in the United States. Nothing of much interest occurs in the MPD for the next hundred years.

1984: Publication of Bright Lights, Big City ruins Soho area for anyone who wants to avoid Jay McInenrny. Jaded, trend-hungry douchebags wonder what will be the next big thing, cast a wary eye north. "We need to find a gritty, underdeveloped neighborhood and put in a restaurant," they think.

1985: Florent opens. Although even the neighborhood's fiercest detractors acknowledge innovation and daring implicit in the opening of a bistro in the MPD at this point in time, it can only be viewed as the root of the poisonous tree from whence springs all evil.

1992: Hogs & Heifers opens, ushering in era of scuzball chic.

2000: Samantha Jones moves from UES to MPD. Thousands of young women who are so unimaginative that they base their own lives on an HBO program written by a gay man and some dude who will eventually become the world's most annoying advice columnist decide that the area is the next big thing.

Lotus opens. Had al-Qaeda bombed this place during certain evenings of its first year they would today be considered national heroes, feted at awards dinners and their features put on stamps and currency.

2002: Keith McNally opens Pastis, forces NYT columnist Rob Walker to coin phrase "la vie fauxh me."

Cielo opens.

2003: Soho House opens, providing the rest of us a brief period of respite from dodgy, dickheaded Brits who helpfully quarantine themselves at 13th and 9th until membership of Nick Denton makes attendance intolerable.

Delta's Song Airlines becomes "official sponsor" of Meatpacking District, folds within three years.

New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission designates Gansevoort Market section a "historic district." Everything's okay now!

2004: Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Gray Kunz open Spice Market, ensuring wealthy foodie MPD holdouts finally need to venture into neighborhood for $30 versions of stuff sold on the streets of Kuala Lampur for fifty cents.

Hotel Gansevoort opens, offering Eurotrash suitable lodgings convenient to world's most Eurotrash-amenable region.

5 Ninth opens, prompting Frank Bruni to write, "Seldom has a Manhattan neighborhood gone from intriguing to annoying — from on-the-cusp to over-the-top — with the distressing speed and depressing thoroughness of the meatpacking district. It is not really a neighborhood anymore. It is an urban theme park: a gaudy epicurean grab bag that weds cuisines from here and there to cocktails from the here and now. It is a "Sex and the City" fantasy in which would-be Carries and could-be Bigs look for love and settle for lamb under supremely flattering lighting." Holy shit, Frank Bruni wrote that? Wow, this neighborhood sucks.

2005: Del Posto opens, marrying the charm of an over-the-top, bloated, foul-mouthed and perverse area to the skills of chef Mario Batali.

Ono opens, offering convicted felon Jeffrey Chodorow a chance to do something more embarrassing to cuisine than that reality TV show with Rocco DiSpirito.

2006: Western Beef closes, an event that would have been fraught with symbolism had anyone with any sense still cared about the neighborhood.

Buddakan opens, prompting more subtle restaurateurs like Mario Batali and Jeffrey Chodorow to wonder if it's not "a little over-the-top."

Comix opens, making for the most meta absurdity yet. Putting a comedy club in the Meatpacking District is like opening a coffee shop in a Starbucks. Can this neighborhood get any worse?

To start things off, we've created an annotated map of the Meatpacking District and the 30 principal hells to be found there. Hardcore geographists used to limit the Meatpacking to 14th Street on the north, the Hudson River on the west, Hudson Street on the east, and Gansevoort Street on the south. Unfortunately for its neighbors, though, the Meatpacking District's vibe is creeping beyond its borders. Big-name restaurants are climbing 10th Avenue up to 16th Street, and a few other establishments are popping up further east on 14th Street. Our general rule is that if you can see the venue's door crowd from within the original District, it might as well be part of the monster. Feel free to disagree, but better safe than sorry. After the jump, full map of the Meatpacking District and 30 reasons why not.

1. 5 Ninth - Williamsburg chef Zak Pelaccio cooks popular fusion cuisine in a room too small for you to ever get a reservation.

2. Apt. - One of the original "secret" lounges, now overrun with crowds who realize they've been had a mere eight steps from the entrance.

3. Buddakan - Decent nouveau Asian fare overwhelmed by rambling patchwork of funhouse rooms.

4. Buddha Bar - Obnoxious Parisian export megaclub draws same douche crowd, slightly different accents.

5. Cielo - Tight face control on this small DJ lounge favors Eurotrash, those who love Eurotrash.

6. Comix - Grand experiment in Meatpacking District comedy club sure to bring in date crowd for financial/spiritual deflowering at neighboring venues.

7. Craftsteak - Bizarre spawn of NYC's Craft, which mutated to Las Vegas as Craftsteak and has now returned to haunt its parent restaurant.

8. Del Posto - "Molto" Mario Batali plants a restaurant-cum-ATM in the neighborhood, charges more for minimal changes to menus from his other establishments.

9. Fatty Crab - One of the few area restaurants locals ever set foot in, this pseudo-casual Malaysian has longer waits than some glitzier joints further in.

10. Florent - Neighborhood early-adopter clings to shreds of street cred by serving predawn fried eggs and frites to drunks and coke fiends.

11. Gaslight - Former hipster-bar bivouac now largely conceded to overflow from nearby joints with more severe doors.

12. Gin Lane - Beloved vomitous stenchpit Village Idiot now transformed into luxe cocktail/raw bar, in move roughly akin to building a gift shop on an Indian burial ground.

13. Highline - Surprisingly reasonable and tasty Thai with dork retro decor is still one of few outposts on Washington Street.

14. Hog Pit - Pork and BBQ faux-roadhouse serves militantly sub-par pig to shellshocked tourists.

15. Hogs & Heifers - Once had at least a slight claim to legitimate dive-bar status, H&H's rambunctious vibe actually masks a nearly fascist code of frat-boy behavior; one of the easiest places to get painlessly ejected from in all of downtown.

16. Hotel Gansevoort / Ono / G-Spa - The Death Star of the Meatpacking District draws B&T crowd like moths to flame: restaurateur Jeffrey Chodorow's Ono restaurant packs in spendy diners, G-Spa turns humid basement into exclusive lounge, and hotel's rooftop bar geneartes a ground-floor line from dusk onward.

17. Lotus / Double Seven - Elder statesman of overpriced Meatpacking clubs with disproportionate door attitude; recently opened Double Seven side-lounge in attempt to re-ignite at least a pretense of exclusivity.

18. Markt - Once little more than a grudgingly accepted fallback if you couldn't get into brunch at Pastis, this place now gets almost as crowded as Pastis due to clueless foot traffic wandering down 14th Street.

19. Morimoto - Former Nobu chef Masaharu Morimoto slings endless courses of stunt-fish, denuding expense accounts Manhattan-wide.

20. One Little West 12th - Tiresomely repetitive lounge room now catering almost exclusively to bottle-service swells.

21. P.M. - Tropical lounge/snackery offers small plates for grazing would-be models and their handlers.

22. Pastis - Original bustling brasserie that may well have pushed the Meatpacking cancer into full malignancy.

23. Pop Burger - Greasy gourmet fast food in front, cocktails in the rear, bingeing and purging encouraged.

24. Rare - One of the few live music venues in the area gives the place a distinction quickly overwhelmed by rote faux-chic lounge.

25. Sascha - Chef Sascha Lyon serves a mishmash of New American comfort food to anyone with indifferent tastes and disposable income.

26. Soho House - Private club with rooftop terrace looms over 9th Avenue like disapproving English governess.

27. Son Cubano - Cuban food, drink, and music, reinterpreted for the sensibilities of inebriated bankers.

28. Spice Market - Gigantic Balinese monstrosity from Jean-Georges Vongerichten occupies structure that looks like a set from one of the more inferior James Bond movies.

29. STK / Tenjeune - Forthcoming mod steakhouse/lounge will likely raise the price ceiling for giant platters of meat and ocean creatures.

30. Vento - Rustic Italian fare used to lure marks into lounge/club, where higher profit margins lurk.