: “If you aren’t Asian, it’s likely that you haven’t heard of this place. : “The Circle is the newest Korean Club in NYC, which opened mid-Feb.”Ĭhris H. In February 2008, a new nightclub opened on a nondescript block on West 41st Street, in the shadow of Times Square.Įric K. (Comments have been condensed and lightly edited for clarity.) In an attempt to capture the essence of the club - and because Asians are such prolific Yelpers - I pored through hundreds of Yelp reviews to piece together the following unofficial oral history of Circle. “You know what it is and why you’re doing it to yourself, but it’s definitely something you do to yourself less than a place to go.” “It’s the venue equivalent of drinking absinthe,” says author Mary H.K.
To the uninitiated, Circle had a certain mystique, like most Korean haunts in NYC and Los Angeles: a word-of-mouth secret, hidden in plain sight.įor those who frequented the place, however, Circle was a habitual stomping ground, for better and (sometimes) for worse.
Thus, in addition to visits from all sorts of K-pop royalty over the years, Circle has also entertained the likes of Anthony Bourdain, Usher, and Pharrell Williams (no link - I was there, too). When it opened 10 years ago, Korean cuisine was essentially limited to a single Manhattan block and there was no “Gangnam Style” today, you can’t fart in Brooklyn without hitting a jar of artisanal kimchi, and K-pop supergroup BTS just performed at the American Music Awards. For 10 years, Circle was the go-to club for Asians in the city, with its main demographic gradually expanding from Koreans to Korean Americans and (just barely) beyond.Ĭircle’s decadelong run as the epicenter of Korean nightlife in New York coincided with the rise of outside interest in Korean entertainment and culture. If you’re an Asian American of a certain age who has partied in NYC, you’ve undoubtedly at least heard of the venue - “Like a midtown bonfire for the ‘Korean and Turnt,’” as hip-hop radio personality Minya “Miss Info” Oh describes it. In the early hours of Presidents Day 2018, the New York nightclub Circle closed its doors for good.