New York Night Life Grows to Excess
It's early Friday morning - so early, in fact, that most would still call it Thursday night - and the music at this Manhattan club is still pumping, filled with the bodies of young partiers and kept company by a quickly growing segment of those firmly-footed in adulthood. These new all-night partiers are a part of what's keeping these clubs open past even New York's usual late hours - the demand for dancing and booze and, many say, casual sex and free-flowing drugs, has proven to be a goldmine for many owners.

Louis Masters, the owner of the popular bar The Doghouse, thinks he knows why: "It's the end of the world, ain't it? These people - the kids, sure, but them hot-shot business types, the lawyers, the doctors. They show up here at one, two in the morning, they don't leave again til there's light outside them windows, usually trashed as hell. They're lookin' for something, and they think they're gonna find it at the bottom of that bottle." The Doghouse is one of many Manhattan bars that has recently sought to extend their 2 a.m. liquor license to 4 a.m.

A bartender at a more upscale club, long known for its exclusivity and all-night parties, put a more sinister spin on the situation. He told us that in addition to the sharp increase in business even for his venue, it's also far more than simply alcohol that's being traded. He's noticed a sharp increase in the casual hook-up, and mentioned that security has been having problems keeping public areas like bathrooms and stairwells free of amorous couples.

He's also seen a drastic rise in the use of recreational drug use: "I mean, you'd always see some E, you know, but now it's like every other person. And not just that. People come in here already high as a kite on half a dozen different things, and they're clearly looking to just waste the night away, maybe find someone to [have sex with], forget what's going on outside. And you know they don't go to work the next day. Some, they come in, they tell me they walked out of their job, they got fired. They don't care."

The NYPD confirms an increase in related citations: public indecency and drunk and disorderly citations have skyrocketed in the past two months, and the flow of drug traffic has seen a 30% increase in the last four weeks alone. Some speculate that the number is even higher. Their suspicions run along the same lines as those of New York's night-time workers: New York is fast becoming a city in despair, one reacting to the overwhelming threat of the looming Loki asteroid with an excess of vice and little care for the future many think is no longer coming.

If these trends continue, it seems very possible that we might destroy ourselves long before the asteroid finishes the job for us.