I spent the higher a part of my 20s as a society reporter in Manhattan for Vogue and for the now-defunct Style.com. For years, I dutifully trailed each trend week, each movie premiere, each nightclub opening, and each charity gala with the consideration and zeal of David Attenborough. For the higher a part of 2015, I attended black tie dinners at Cipriani Wall Street greater than I cooked in my very own house. And as my profession broadened into journey, I skilled nightlife round the world, from posh home events in London to full-moon festivals in Bali.
All the whereas, Boston, my hometown, remained the punchline. If our neighbor to the south, New York City, was lengthy referred to as “the city that never sleeps,” I at all times considered Boston as “the city that not only sleeps but goes to bed early.” When I moved residence in my 30s, I nearly welcomed the predictability. A quieter metropolis would imply much less temptation, proper?
Boy, was I flawed.
Boston has modified from Earth to the moon lately. There’s at all times been a semblance of nightlife with an abundance of dwell music and the odd nightclub right here or there, however for a very long time, there have been many components working in opposition to the metropolis’s after-dark panorama. Liquor licenses are prohibitively costly, usually operating into the tons of of hundreds of {dollars} if you’ll find them in any respect. Arcane governance constructions make it troublesome for the City of Boston to move its personal nightlife legal guidelines—maintaining us beholden to the political whims of far-flung cities at the different finish of the Commonwealth (which, in the end, have little or no day-to-day affect on life right here). Bars shut at 2:00 a.m., however the public transportation bafflingly stops operating round 1:00 a.m. For a very long time, you couldn’t assist however really feel that Boston’s Puritan roots lingered. Fun felt like a restricted useful resource.
Then got here our progressive Mayor Michelle Wu, who, in a daring transfer, created the position of Director of Nightlife Economy. Enter its first holder, Corean Reynolds: a pointy, unflappable bureaucrat who calls herself “the connective tissue between City Hall and the folks who make our nightlife live and breathe.” For the first time, restaurateurs, venue homeowners and promoters, bartenders, and patrons now have a direct line to metropolis authorities.
“We’ve had mayors in the past who said, ‘Nothing happens past 10 p.m.,” Reynolds informed me. “Historically, folks haven’t seen the value in the nighttime economy, or they didn’t see themselves in it.”