16965: (Craig) Article: The Voodoo That He Does, So Well, Into the Night (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: dgcraig@att.net


The Voodoo That He Does, So Well, Into the Night
October 17, 2003
By LYNDA RICHARDSON

UNIK ERNEST, dreadlocks grazing the collar of his Yves St.
Laurent blazer, slips into a leather banquette of his new
PM lounge in the meatpacking district of the West Village.
He nods a quick greeting here and there in the ultratrendy
club, designed to evoke a forsaken gentlemen's club in
Haiti circa the 1940's, or something like that.

Mr. Ernest, who is 32 and Haitian born, is being
interviewed late this night, an insane endeavor because the
music is throbbing and the nightspot is starting to jump,
with the impossibly tall and thin waitresses in Diane Von
Furstenberg wiggling their hips.

Anyhow, the subject is voodoo. Mr. Ernest is relishing the
buzz surrounding the month-old lounge, its voodoo theme and
all.

"Voodoo is our culture," he says, casting a glance around
at the voodoo bottles, the masks, the heads of a horse and
a cow, papier-mâché of course, from Haitian carnival.
Hanging on distressed brick walls are large photographs;
one of a pulsating Haitian street party, the other of
voodoo dolls. "We have good voodoo here, not the bad
voodoo. I never grew up around that."

Mr. Ernest is an entrepreneur who knows something about New
York's high-octane night life. For the last nine years, he
and his 34-year-old brother, Kyky Conille, have promoted
A-list parties in downtown Manhattan, most notably the
Candyland-themed disco parties on Wednesday nights at
Serafina, the restaurant on Lafayette Street.

Now, the brothers are two principal owners of PM on
Gansevoort Street, which is drawing celebrities, slinky
models and people who, if they look fabulous enough, get
the nod from Aramis, the bouncer. An interloper feels about
as hip as Margaret Thatcher.

Mr. Ernest is the gabbier of the brothers. Fluent in Creole
and French, he is a bit self-conscious about his English
proficiency, asking shyly if he is using the right word or
phrase.

His manner is earnest, straightforward. He says he changed
his name to Unik from his birth name of Franky, because he
likes being unique. He sees beauty in being different.

Just listen to him: "Sometimes, it's good to be black, and
you need to be proud of who you are," he says. "When I go
to a place, like I'll be at a party of 200 and I'll be the
only black man, everybody will talk to me because they want
to know who I am. I love it. Even celebrities come to me
like they knew me before. It's better to be noticed than
not noticed. If I go to a place where there are only black
people, I don't get the same impact. I know what to do with
the attention I get. I turn it into money."

Mr. Ernest sees the lounge as a kind of Haitian museum.

"What we are doing is for our country," he says. "This is
showing another side of Haiti. People think of Haitians as
boat people, illiterate, that we are stupid, people who
bring AIDS. I try to show that Haitians can contribute to
the success of any country. We are intelligent and we have
good ideas. We came to America, and we did it for every
single Haitian on this earth."

So pray tell! How is this lounge, and its suggestion of a
French-colonial style, benefiting Haitians? Mr. Ernest
smiles, shrugging. He says the motif is not meant to be
taken seriously, but to convey exclusivity, elegance, a
good energy. "We are out there to show people a good time."

The conversation resumes on a late afternoon when sunlight
floods the empty lounge. Up the street is the bistro
Pastis. A few blocks north is Soho House, a hot private
club. "I've been there many times, " Mr. Ernest says
approvingly. "It's well done. It's exclusive. I love it."

Mr. Ernest's own lounge has a V.I.P. bathroom with a
bouncer. The not-so-amazing must wander to the toilets
upstairs when nature calls.

Despite Mr. Ernest's delight in exclusivity, he says he has
not forgotten whence he came. Born poor in Port-au-Prince,
he never knew his father. His mother worked odd jobs so her
three children could attend good schools. The family moved
in 1990 to Miami, where he worked as a busboy at a South
Beach hotel. He partied at night, gaining a reputation for
delivering desirable crowds to clubs.

When he and his brother moved to New York in June 1994, he
says they sometimes slept in subways and in Central Park
when they could not stay with a friend, then a party
promoter, who lived in a studio apartment with a
girlfriend. That fall, the two brothers produced their
first major event, a disco party to promote world peace.

FOR Mr. Ernest, night life is business. He says he does not
use drugs or alcohol. And when he leaves PM, he returns to
the SoHo apartment he shares with his Haitian-born wife,
Kathia Boisrond, an office manager at Baruch College.

He sees PM as a platform to even more business, perhaps
opening hotels, a resort, promoting parties in Hollywood.

But he knows his business is cutthroat. He recalls a
Wednesday night party at Serafina being disrupted more than
a year ago when someone sprayed tear gas. He thinks it was
a jealous act. "People will try to break you," he says
darkly.

Mr. Ernest may no longer have stars in his eyes. Well,
maybe he has some. (He muttered something the other night
about Lenny Kravitz possibly showing up. Mr. Kravitz did
not.) But Mr. Ernest knows there is a certain unreality to
his world.

"We don't get caught up in success. We know nothing is
forever."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/17/nyregion/17PROF.html?ex=1067402985&ei=1&en=452
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Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company