This year, New Year's partyers have a choice

By Dennis Romero

Dec. 26, 2002 12 AM PT

Special to The Times

DAVE DEAN stands in the center lane of Flower Street, hands held wide. At 6-foot-2, he casts a wide shadow that surely spooks a cavalcade of oncoming traffic. “We’ll use all this area across Flower,” he says, describing the main stage of his third annual outdoor New Year’s Eve party in Los Angeles.

This year Dean’s “Giant Village” moves downtown in what he and other boosters describe as a coming out for the long-promised nightlife revitalization of the city’s core in a time of uncertainty for Southern California dance culture.

In grandiose Dean fashion (he brought the mega-club concept to Los Angeles in 2000 with his Giant weekly), the 7,500- capacity event will occupy Flower between 5th and 6th streets, with the Bonaventure and Standard hotels serving as official bookends where revelers are encouraged to spend the night.

“We want this to be the annual signature event for downtown,” Dean says. “This is big.” That’s assuming, of course, that the crowds decide to come.

The central city scene will be bolstered by a New Year’s bash at the Grand Avenue Club, where the bimonthly club Naked is ready for as many as 4,500 partygoers. The almost 2-year-old Naked is part of a new wave of sex-obsessed club nights nationwide that depend more on a body-conscious clientele than big-name DJs.

Naked co-promoter Danny “B.” Bitar gives away part of the secret of his sexess: “We target about 50 strip joints in the area and give the girls free passes.”

Hollywood will not be without its contenders, however, including a big-room event at the Palace featuring “progressive house” heroes John Digweed and John Debo behind the turntables.

Elsewhere, trance DJ Steve Castro will spin at Afterhour Power’s “Mansion Power” party in Bel-Air, with tickets starting at $100 for an all-you-can-drink affair. And New Year’s Day, Spundae will hold a “sunset”-to-2 a.m. event at Circus with trance kings Ferry Corsten and Armin Van Buuren as well as Chicago house freak Derrick Carter playing records.

Of course, with room for 12,000, the downtown bashes may well become the focus of L.A.’s New Year’s celebrations. At a minimum, it will test the long-anticipated but yet-to-be-realized notion that the city’s center can happen after sundown.

“I am excited that downtown will be a major venue for New Year’s Eve parties this year,” says City Councilwoman Jan Perry, who represents the area. “This is just another example of how downtown has become the ultimate destination for fine dining, hotels and entertainment.”

Superstar trance DJ Paul van Dyk of Germany will spend his second New Year’s Eve in a row headlining in downtown and his third in a row in Los Angeles. “We had in previous years great shows in L.A., so we decided to come back,” he says.

Partygoer John Figi, 28, a consultant at a Bunker Hill accounting firm, plans to stay at the Standard and party at Giant Village after work on Dec. 31. “I’m parking the car and I’m not picking it up until Jan. 2,” he says.

For Dean and the rest of the club scene, the ride to 2003 has been filled with drama and strange days. Gene La Pietra’s third-annual New Year’s Eve block party on Hollywood Boulevard was foiled by area business owners. Some were bitter about last year’s traffic-clogging event, and others were mad about La Pietra’s failed push for Hollywood secession.

Area merchants, led by Joel Fisher of the rival Palace nightclub, applied for a midnight parade permit before La Pietra entered his bid. The Police Commission approved the business owners’ event (“Coalition for Hollywood Rally”) because they applied first. Dean said he served as an advisor to the merchants during the permit process.

La Pietra, meanwhile, has been hit with more bad news. A Dec. 7 raid by U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and state Alcohol Beverage Control agents at Circus has thrown the future of Los Angeles club culture into question (Spundae on Saturdays there is L.A.’s only true weekly mega-club).

For both downtown L.A. and Hollywood events, this will be a critical New Year’s Eve, with Dean claiming that his downtown party will restore luster to the city’s center and to the scene. Spundae promoter Neil Thomas, meanwhile, says the return of Hollywood nightlife (Spundae, Red, Star Shoes, Nacional, Las Palmas, Ivar, Deep, etc.) will always make the area Southern California’s nightlife core, even this New Year’s Eve. Says Thomas: “Hollywood is where it’s at.”

New Year’s Eve

What: “Giant Village 2003”

Where: Flower Street, between 5th and 6th streets

DJs: Flower Street Stage: Paul van Dyk, Tall Paul, others. Club BPM: The Crystal Method, Mark Farina, Mark Tabberner, others. Standard Rooftop VIP Lounge: Jason Bentley, Colette Sol, Rebecca Sin.

When: 9 p.m. to 4 a.m.

Age: 21 and older

Cost: $75 general admission; $150 VIP

Info: www.giantclub.com

What: Naked presents “White Night”

DJs: Darude, , Reza, others.

Where: Grand Avenue Club, 1024 S. Grand Ave., L.A.

When: 9 p.m. to noon

Age: 21 and older

Cost: $40 general admission presale, $60 VIP presale; $50 general admission at the door, $75 VIP at the door

Info: www.dannybproductions.com

hat: “Together as One”