It’s four in the morning and the bouncer of your favorite club is pushing you out the door telling you to go home because everything’s closed. And if you’re in New York, you know there’s a party still going on somewhere. Where do you go? You go to Mike‘s.
I’m talking about “Mike’s Apartment,” the jazz and tap dance studio-turned-bachelor-pad-turned-wee-hour-hot-spot by a guy named Michael Herman, a New Jersey native that hosts the best after party parties in none other than his own, not-so-private apartment.
For about a year now, the 32-year-old clubpartment owner has been welcoming large crews of party people in his home on Great Jones Street in NoHo. But, this wasn’t always his idea of a job when he was growing up.
It turns out, his father helped invent the calling card for AT&T back in the 80s and later got into investment banking. Herman lost no time in helping his old man, and he ended up managing both a flooring company and a paintbrush distributor – not exactly tickets for the “in” crowd.
Yet the easy going ripped jeans and t-shirts entrepreneur made lots of eclectic friends at NYU when he was getting his Bachelor’s degree.
In 2008, he decided to rent an apartment in NoHo that used to be a dance studio owned by an old couple. The apartment was already decked out with mirrors everywhere and hardwood floors and he decided to set up his bed in a hidden corner and a stove in another and leave the rest of the place bare – perfect for parties.
It was last March that his bachelor pad became the hot spot of the streets of NoHo, when he brought back 50 people to his place to continue partying after the night at the Bowery Hotel was cut short by a tired staff at four in the morning. Though the party at Herman’s place ended up in a brawl with two drunken guests, the event inspired him to make his parties bigger and better.
Plus, the little so-called-get-together put him on the map in the club scene in New York and his apartment-turned-club was dubbed by late night club goers as “Mike’s Apartment.”
In fact, his party crash pad became so popular among all the New York hipsters that during New York Fashion Week he was welcoming about 150 guests into the former dance studio. After four in the morning, his iPhone starts ringing and people begin crashing his apartment for a continuation of the party.
There are no bartenders. Just a fridge full of beer, and open bottles of Vodka and Whiskey strategically placed in specific corners of the apartment. Herman doesn’t buy any of the priced possessions, and all the booze is BYOB. Except for the little that he keeps to himself locked in a cabinet somewhere in his party place.
Some of his guests have been Axl Rose and Will.I.Am, and if you want to get in, you better know either Herman or some of his friends, otherwise you’ll be sent back down in the elevator and back to your cold apartment with no booze and no extra partying.
