Let’s bring back Cities: An ode to Georgetown’s lost club

This might be a bit of a nostalgic piece, but I feel like I should make the freshmen who think Friday nights at Georgetown are average aware that they arrived to DC a year too late.

See, I’m now abroad but I’ve heard from a numerous amount of people that on Friday nights people don’t really know where to go out. Lately the Euro-Arab and Latin student body seems to be partying at a place called Huxley, but we’ll see how long that lasts… Moreover, a lot of students are now partying on U Street a lot. I’d rather that wasn’t the case… Those clubs are called “underground” for a reason – don’t go there to get wasted, go there to appreciate the music. Jokes aside, now that I know this, y’all won’t have the excuse that it’s “too far” next time I DJ in a club there.

I’ve heard a freshman say that there is a club called Cities Lounge, which is very bad. Oh dear, you can’t even imagine what Cities is. Or better yet, what it WAS. In the previous years, if you were not at Cities on a Friday night you might as well have stayed home. Seriously though. If you still went out but weren’t there you were probably drinking alongside prostitutes, failed politicians and pimps in some sketchy club.

I feel very sad that Cities is not a “thing” anymore, because it played a part in some of the best nights on my freshman and definitely sophomore year.

Here’s a key piece of information: the music in Cities was very (very) bad most of the times. Sometimes you’d experience the night where the music was oddly decent, but generally that would not have been the case. That didn’t stop us though. We are all smart students, and as such we found ways to get around the music issue. The widespread rule of thumb was: never show up to Cities sober. Trust me, I tried it once. It was not a fun experience at all.

This means that a night at Cities would not just entail going to a nightclub, as it comprised the mandatory “pregame”. You would start drinking with some of your close friends in townhouses, messy Village A_s or Henle 7 (for those of you who know what I’m talking about).

These were not your standard pregame where people drink a bit, socialize and play some drinking games. These were intense drinking and genuinely crazy gatherings where the aim was to get as drunk as possible in the time frame of 90 to 120 minutes. Loud music, broken furniture and drinking games, people dancing, people “TDTF” and people scoring their first moves of the night playing “football”. That was a Cities pregame. Lots and lots of drinking, until the music was cut off by the host shouting either “SNAPS is here” or “Uber’s here”. That was pretty much code for “See you all at Cities”.

Once at the club, chances were you were already pretty drunk, so the first thing you’d do is naturally check out the club. A seemingly easy and chill task…not at Cities! It would probably take a good 40 minutes to get from one side to the other, as you would run into 90 percent of the people you knew in Washington DC. Between the hello_s and the quick catching up, which mainly consisted in describing to each other how drunk you were and why that was the case, it wasn’t hard to get lost. Cities held a homogeneous structure, almost like a high school cafeteria.

You could spot the Latinos smoking outside and by the upper bar, pounding shots of tequila chased with beer – beware of approaching them as it would result in a bottle of Cuervo shared between 20 people forced down your throat.

Around the bar and on the dance floor it was a “mix-match”, but that’s where you could find most American students, as well as where your feet would get stuck to the fireball residue on the floor.

If you proceeded straight you would reach the infamous table area where 50 Arab and European students were getting wasted in a three-table conglomerate of 30 sq/ft. Club security would most likely be there too telling off someone who was dancing shirtless on the table or helping some girl find her “lost” jacket from a singular 20 meter tall tower of coats in the corner of the table.

If you didn’t pee in some obscure corner of the club (you know who you are) you’d have to suffer through the bathroom line. Concentrated on “holding it in” you’d feel an arm around you shoulder: “Duuuudeeeee! Whats uppppp!!! … We are in accounting together! Third row bro!” shouts “Drunk University Student X” along with some spit, while you’re there trying to be as polite as possible to such stranger. The funny part about it, though, is that the following Monday, in class you would be approached by someone you’ve never seen before saying: “Duude! Cities was awesome brooo!” – you finally met your “Cities bathroom pal”.

Back to Friday – the night would not end in Cities. If you were in the conditions to make it around the corner to Crepeaway (and trust me, it can be a pretty tedious task at times) you’d walk into the official Cities afterparty, greeted by people dancing on the table throwing bits and pieces of their Nutella crêpe at your face. If you hadn’t found a girl yet to close the night off, this was your last chance. With a 75% success rate (the remaining 25% depending on how drunk YOU were) you’d make your way home thinking: “Gotta love Cities Fridays”

Friday nights will never be the same without cities, and that is a fact. Hopefully there will soon be another “lounge” replacing its function, though definitely not its essence. If not, just wait for the perpetrators of this article to be back and we’ll try to make something happen.