The 30-year-old, English-accented, big-bearded Lower East Side nightlife king Simon Hammerstein, who calls his half-burlesque, semi-lewd supper club the Box a “theater of varieties,” just bought his first apartment, according to city records.

Last month, he paid $1.27 million  read more »]]> http://www.observer.com/2008/simon-hammerstein-bites-seaport-box-1-2-m#comments Real Estate Simon Hammerstein Tue, 03 Jun 2008 19:11:16 -0400 Max Abelson 70141 at http://www.observer.com http://www.observer.com/2008/days-box-turns-one-owner-simon-hammerstein-reflects

Editors' Note: This article has been corrected from an earlier version which misidentified the grandfather of Simon Hammerstein. We regret the error.

This Thursday, Valentine’s Day, The Box, Simon Hammerstein’s Lower East Side burlesque nightclub, will celebrate its one-year anniversary. To mark the occasion, the exclusive watering hole has arranged an evening of special return performances by the past year’s most popular acts—entertainers like Buck Angel and the Porcelain Twins.

Talking to the Daily Transom today about the past year, Mr. Hammerstein, the grandson of acclaimed lyricist Oscar, said the highlight of the past 12 months was “that we had a small little idea and a lot of people checked in and made it pretty exciting.”  read more »

Late last night at Simon Hammerstein and Richard Kimmel’s celeb-infested, serially newsworthy Lower East Side cabaret, The Box, the actress Leelee Sobieski wore a top-hat and slinky tank top and carried a mold of her own skull (it had been commissioned for an upcoming film, Night Train, she explained, in which she stars with Danny Glover). The occasion was Kiki de Montparnasse’s evening of “erotic entertainment and discovery” (which began with a dinner at the SoHo skivvies store and then moved East to Chrystie Street), and Ms. Sobieski—blonde, dewy, gratuitously tall, alarmingly unguarded—was dressed as a Latin phrase. More specifically: “My conceptual bullshit costume is Memento Mori. When you realize your death is inevitable.”  read more »

Before leaving for a Memorial Day weekend tour of the Caribbean aboard the Queen Mary 2, theater heir Simon Hammerstein, the man behind the burlesque nightclub the Box (see The New York World, p. 3), intimated that he is about to unpack something new.

“We’re looking into expanding into different areas,” said Mr.  read more »