NEW YORK TIMES - FASHION & STYLE OCT 2009
Vital Signs Under the Viaduct by Allen Salkin
Rigo Herasme sipped a cocktail of Johnnie Walker Blue and Red Bull on the rocks.
He was standing next to a long white couch in the upstairs V.I.P. room of Body, the sleek club he and a partner opened in a former warehouse in the shadow of the Riverside Drive viaduct on 12th Avenue near 135th Street in West Harlem.
"We used to play stickball on this street," he said, shooting the cuffs of his white shirt.
Three decades removed from his stickball days, Mr. Herasme, who grew up in this predominantly Dominican neighborhood and eventually flourished in the trade-show business, is becoming a player in another game.
"This is going to be the premier location in the city," he said. "We're going to make downtown come uptown."
His bravado would seem like that of any other self-inflated impresario, if not for the pulsing scene outside his club: long lines of curvy women squeezed into shiny dresses and men in sharply pressed pants; a fast-talking promoter stepping out of a tooth-enamel-white 1970 Cadillac Coupe de Ville; massive steel arches that support Riverside Drive soaring above it all.
