CONFESSIONS OF AN EX SCORES STRIPPER
AS CITY'S MOST FAMOUS 'SEX' CLUB CRUMBLES
By RUTH FOWLER
Last updated: 2:29 pm
July 6, 2008
Posted: 3:44 am
July 6, 2008
My audition at Scores West called for putting on a slinky polyester outfit, fake hair and too much makeup, and then slithering around a small stage half-undressed while a belching manager stared at me. I downed three shots, got on the stage, and after 30 seconds, they hired me.
It sounds easy, but managers would make girls they had no intention of hiring dance on that same stage for up to 20 minutes. Why? Because they could. Everyone wanted to work at Scores.
The place was in its heyday when I worked there in 2005-06. Howard Stern was extolling its virtues every week, and Scores publicist Lonnie Hanover and his crew would pop by regularly. It felt more like an exclusive club with naked chicks than any topless joint I'd ever worked at, with a restaurant, a hugely expensive bar, private rooms in the back and a swanky VIP area.
Lindsay Lohan, Kate Moss, the Foo Fighters, Christina Aguilera, the Giants - even Stevie Wonder came in, which always cracked me up. I mean, what did he get out of a place with an (ostensible) no-touching-just-looking rule?
I have mixed feelings as I watch the Scores empire implode - I feel it's good riddance, but I'm nostalgic.
Scores West, by the Hudson on West 28th Street, had its liquor license pulled after four strippers and two managers were charged in a prostitution sting early this year.
Shuttered since April, real-estate broker Alex Picken of Picken Real Estate told The Post that the building - up for sale for $40 million - may have a buyer who would split the building into commercial space and a strip club, perhaps with a new name.
Like many of its customers, Scores woke up the next morning, broke, hung over, with everything looking a lot less pretty.
Even during the flush days, I saw the vulgarity and stupidity that would lead to its demise. The managers, most of them ex-cops with a .38 tucked in a holster under an Armani jacket, were, with few exceptions, arrogant and lecherous.
If it was a slow night, they'd pass the time by paying girls to make out with them (and more) in the back rooms. And sometimes they wouldn't pay - the girls would do it for free knowing that their reward would be getting introduced to the high rollers.
The first time I sat at the bar, a manager eyed me up. "Hey, doll, you new here?" he snorted with disgust, eyeing the Yankee game on the flat screen while expertly harpooning a graying slab of gyro meat from his tin takeout plate. "I ain't seen you around before. You gotta boyfriend?" They always made sure we had their numbers.
