August 9, 2004

New York's Newest All Night Disco Is a Car Wash

Brought to You by the Creators of Saddam's Taxi Bistros

Miss Trudy Patience, critic, reviews Taxi Wash, New York's newest all night party till dawn club.

I thought we had reached the heights of depravity -- or is it ridiculous silliness -- long ago. Yes, people, long ago. But I was wrong.

Those same Wall Street money men, or maybe money women, who brought us the Saddam's Taxi chain of bistros are at it again. Now we get to stay up all night and drink and dance until we either fall down or puke. Either way, there's no going home until dawn. And guess what? We get to do it in the middle of a car wash for taxis.

That's right! Put on your rain hats and slickers and grab a taxi to the Bowery. If your taxi goes through the car wash, you get into the club and don't pay the $50 cover charge. Your chances of skipping the cover charge also get a boost if you're a hottie, under 25, wear a C or D cup and look like you might flirt with an eating disorder.

Who is the Wall Street investor who has this taxi cab fetish? First Saddam's Taxi bistros and now Taxi Wash? Just what was it that Mommy Dearest did to the little tyke in the back of a taxi that so warped their tiny psyche? Never mind. I don't really want to know. Ever hear of a rhetorical question?

Technically, you don't party in the actual car wash, at least not at first. Later, when your senses are appropriately impaired, that's when you might find yourself in the real car wash.

The club is sandwiched between two car wash conveyor lines that carry taxis through hot suds, slapping chamois and massive spinning brushes. The club walls are floor to ceiling glass, so you're right there beside the taxis and the drivers and their suggestive gestures. (And I thought all the Pakistani cab drivers had left New York. Not!) Add in pulsing lights, multimedia images flickering on the ceiling, basso profundo sound effects, and throbbing brushes and you might as well be in the car wash itself.

Yes, people! Transcendental and phantasmagoric. How else would you describe it? I'm not just spraying you with hot suds.

If you do spend a night in Taxi Wash, don't shrink back from the ultimate depravity, Mein Munchkin.

Every 15 minutes a taxi that has no roof or sides moves down the car wash conveyor through the cloud of suds and brushes. Once you reach a state of sufficient impairment after imbibing your favorite drug, you don a rain hat and slicker that Taxi Wash provides, climb into the open cab, and actually ride through the car wash. Tres wet.

I was ready to leave by 3 a.m. But they won't let you out until Naval Observatory Official Dawn, which on my visit was 5:12 a.m. So come prepared with ear plugs and something waterproof to read, provided your brain hasn't shut down.

Also, an added caution: My hair was a fright after the experience, and I was, shall we say, somewhat late for work.

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