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all words and photos by Dakota Fine

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I’m stealing the name for this post from Lexie Moreland, of WWD fame, former resident of the District, photog extraordinaire, beloved by many here. When she transitioned to New York she promised me she was to start a weekly(?) column by this name, NYC: Not Your City. So here I am, stealing it, because well, it’s a great tag, and in the hopes that she will pick up where I leave off…

I traveled to New York this past weekend for several reasons, none of which are of paramount importance, dear reader. But suffice to say, there are many things to do and see in New York, and being that it is just a short 4 hour jaunt from DC to neighboring Gotham, it makes for the perfect playground, an escape into the seamy urban abyss.

In photographs, my story is a selective one. This is not an exhaustive expose ad nauseum detailing all the crevices found or the extravagant apartments seen (and believe me, there was one that defined splendor), really I found my most compelling subject the sky, and you will know why shortly.

I began my journey to New York trailing up-and-coming DC rock band, US Royalty, who are soon to release a video or two, along with a much anticipated album. Finally. As the sun set in Brooklyn, the band had just finished loading into a divey bar a couple blocks off of Bedford called the Glasslands. We settled into a table outside and took in the summer air, ordering a Blackberry milkshake and two-for-one ciders.

The event was a regular Brooklyn hipster-fest put on in conjuction with a Vice Magazine issue release party and Done to Death Projects a management emissary for US Royalty and other bands, most notably Cartel, of MTV “Band in the Bubble” fame. The opened artists studio directly adjacent to the club made for an interesting, if voyeur-driven spectacle for the crowd milling about outside, as people flitted in and out.

Variously paying little attention to which band was actually playing I couldn’t really tell you what Seasick sounded like, but the lead singer was wearing a Michael Jackson-esque sequined top…

US Royalty eventually took to the stage sometime after midnight to very little fanfare, very low lighting, and a sound engineering job that desperately called for dialing up the vocals. An open trash can adorned the front of stage left, directly before lead-guitarist Paul Thornley, a nice touch. I have never seen anything like it to be honest, but it wasn’t totally unexpected, after all, the band members had already regaled me with stories of Jesse Bishop (frontman for DC art-punk band, Exactly) waking up in the balcony, locked into the club after a night of partying and performing at this very venue.

The atmosphere inside the club was thick with humidity, with tiny Colt 45 bottles littering the interior due to the free giveaway for early-comers. Nicky Digital was there, New York’s most prolific nightlife documentarian, he might have even snapped a couple of yours truly alongside the aforementioned Lexie Moreland, of WWD fame.

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Venturing out the next day, I was late to get my start, partying in New York until 5am tends to take it all out of me. But I traveled down to the South Street Seaport nevertheless, to catch a purportedly (as twittered) free show from Chester French and Kid Cudi put on by Paper Magazine. As the crowds gathered, I met up with some DC luminaries in the likes of dynamic DJ duo Cassidy & Fabiana. But just as the show was beginning to get underway, the clouds above Gotham began to swirl ominously and the stage crew came on to cover all the equipment with tarps. I lost interest in the performance that was likely not to happen anytime soon and quickly shifted my eyes to the heavens.

In the end, the clouds unleashed what amounted to not much of a storm, but I made my way uptown, having lost interest in music due to the visual splendor surrounding me. As the sun went down that day, it lit up the skies above Gotham, and perched rooftop in the West Village I captured the fireworks as they colored the sky.

Though it is not my city dear reader, New York is always good to me. A city I love to visit…

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