A great success! The Edison is simply fantastic. The attention to detail is astounding. There is not a single light bulb in the club that isn't a reproduction edison. They weren't enforcing the dress code as stictly as I'd expected (hoped), but being well dressed was clearly appreciated. The Edison is currently the 'hot thing' in LA it would seem, and there was quite a line to get in later in the evening. Luckily, we arrived early. It saddened me to see such a lovely space filled with so many decidedly unlovely people, but they have to pay the rent, I suppose.
First, I met fmra in the smoking lounge, just inside the entrance. The drink counters around the edge of the room are built out of some sort of hand-cranked cast iron industrial machinery, with gears aplenty. Apparently some sort of textile machines, perhaps industrial bobbon winders. There is also a shoeshine stand, if you care to revel in the luxury of massive class inequality.
Downstairs, silent films are projected on the walls, and most of the furniture is reclaimed and repurposed steam-age industrial machinery and architectural artifacts.
Me posing with a bank of Westinghouse steam generators:
I ordered an "Ernest Hemingway"; champagne and absinthe. Absente or Pernod, I would assume. Not as nice as the absinthe I'm used to, but quite palatable nonetheless, and one can't fault them for not systematically breaking the law.
The seating is broken up into sections and rooms, which can be reserved (a preposterous notion in my opinion), and I would venture that the best is the furnace. Yes, they converted the inside of the furnace into a seating area. Rather than firing a massive boiler, the furnace heated pipes, which still line the wall, curving up like the ribs of some massive creature or a demented industrial pipe organ. I can only assume that it was a semi-sealed water system, the pipes leading up to banks of generators which were originally on the ground floor, and thence to condensers to be returned to the furnace.
In the furnace, I demonstrate that this club is either very new, very trusting, or only appeals to the class of people who wouldn't dream of walking out with antique decor:
All in all, we had a lovely time. I had a drink with Seth Green, if that matters, some belligerant LA debutante with more money than sense tried to pick a fight with me, and I had a thoroughy enjoyable time with good company in one of the most aesthetically pleasing spaces I have ever been legally allowed into.
