Standing in front of a Sherwin-Williams store, Mark Ronson felt a surprising absence of nostalgia. This very spot, he recalled, was once the legendary Buddha Bar.
During his days as a somewhat unenthusiastic New York University student in the 1990s, Ronson had tirelessly worked to secure a DJ gig at this downtown corner of Varick and Vandam.
In its heyday, Buddha Bar was the epicenter of New York cool. It was a buzzing lounge where supermodels danced to the city’s most innovative DJs, and an intimidating door staff ensured that only the elite made it past the velvet rope.
Ronson gazed thoughtfully at the Sherwin-Williams sign now adorning the building.
“I desperately wanted to play here,” he admitted. “But looking back, it did absolutely nothing for my career. All that effort just to DJ here, and it holds no significance for me now. It’s likely far more useful as a paint shop.”
Now 50, Ronson is far removed from those grueling nights spent lugging heavy record crates from one venue to another. His journey from energizing dance floors led him to a stellar career as a record producer, songwriter, and film composer. He has collaborated with an impressive roster of artists including Amy Winehouse, Bruno Mars, Adele, Billie Eilish, Dua Lipa, and Lady Gaga, earning him nine Grammy Awards, an Oscar, and numerous multiplatinum successes.
He’s currently taking a reflective pause, chronicling his early years in his recently released memoir, “Night People: How to Be a D.J. in ’90s New York City.” The book revisits his apprenticeship with a blend of nostalgia and cringeworthy recollections, a sentiment he continued to share during a recent morning’s walking tour of his old stomping grounds.
“Even standing here now, I still feel a rush,” he remarked at the intersection of Canal Street and West Broadway.
This location was once the New Music Cafe, a humble spot that transformed into a sweltering hotspot during its legendary ‘Sweet Thang’ parties. Today, it houses Palace NYC, an upscale lounge boasting an Art Deco design and bottle service.
“Its charm lay in its unpretentiousness,” Ronson explained, noting that the crowd initially consisted of “downtown regulars” and “registered nurses” before it began attracting celebrities like Mike Tyson, Wesley Snipes, and Leonardo DiCaprio.
One of his most unforgettable moments was the night Biggie Smalls, “the King of New York” as Ronson calls him in his book, graced the club. Ronson was spinning, seamlessly mixing Mary J. Blige’s “You Bring Me Joy” with Barry White’s “It’s Ecstasy When You Lay Down Next to Me.” Months later, Biggie returned, this time with Jay-Z.
“It was one of their birthdays,” Ronson remembered. “They walked in wearing matching white hats, and it was absolutely electrifying. I felt like I was in a dream, seeing the artists from my record sleeves come to life right before my eyes.”
Ronson, despite a privileged upbringing in London and Manhattan, became an improbable DJ. In his memoir, he reveals he was a “night person” from a young age, primarily because his parents—socialite Ann Dexter-Jones and music manager turned real estate mogul Laurence Ronson—“lived for the party.”
Following their divorce, Mick Jones of the band Foreigner became his stepfather. Their spacious 10-room apartment on Central Park West served as a constant party hub in the 1980s, perpetually “teeming with musicians and eccentrics,” as Ronson describes. Yet, despite this environment, he remained somewhat shielded, only discovering the club scene at 16.
“I was a fairly well-behaved child,” he confessed. “I wasn’t one for sneaking out or experimenting with drugs.”
However, his passion for music was undeniable, and he yearned to experience The Shelter, an all-ages dance club located on Hudson Street.
“Downtown felt incredibly distant then,” he recounted. “My first serious girlfriend lived on Prince Street, and I vividly remember her artist mother giving me directions: ‘You take the C train to Prince Street.’ It all sounded like a foreign language to me at the time.”
Today, he stood outside the former location of The Shelter, which now houses Officine Gullo, a high-end kitchen remodeling studio. He peered through the windows at the gleaming stainless steel ovens.
“It was incredible to come here and see a thousand kids, all sharing that same palpable excitement, inching forward in the line,” he recalled. “In winter, everyone bundled in enormous coats, and some kids clearly had taken their substances too early, already twitching and dancing while waiting.”
“Given that these parties went on until four or five in the morning,” he added, “we became masters of inventing elaborate excuses about sleepovers and other alibis.”
This marked the beginning of his downtown life. Now, he resides just a short distance away in TriBeCa with his wife, Grace Gummer—daughter of actress Meryl Streep and sculptor Don Gummer—and their two daughters.
Our tour continued to the site of Don Hill’s, another former club where Ronson once DJ’d, now closed for years. He reminisced about the cultural shift at the turn of the century when New York was swept up in the hipster and indie rock scene.
“That was the first cultural shift where I truly felt I wasn’t at the forefront of what was cool anymore,” Ronson confessed. “It was a bit intimidating. Suddenly, everyone was wearing super skinny jeans, and it felt like a different world.”
“After DJing for a decade,” he concluded, “I was honestly pretty burnt out on the whole scene.”
The demanding schedule of DJing from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. also involved drug use, a topic he addresses candidly in his memoir. “I didn’t set out to write a deeply personal book about addiction and my own experiences with drugs,” he stated, “but it would have been disingenuous to omit them.”
Transitioning from the turntables, he launched the next chapter of his career, famously producing Amy Winehouse’s groundbreaking album, “Back to Black.”
These days, walking through the neighborhood with his daughters, he occasionally catches glimpses of his younger self: a driven hustler, cigarettes in his pocket, burdened with crates full of vinyl.
“It almost feels a bit cliché,” he chuckled. “Like a scene straight out of a movie, where you see all your past versions of yourself, hopping in and out of taxis, heading to different clubs, always carrying those heavy record crates.”
The final stop on our tour brought us to 171 Varick Street, the former home of Tilt, a club where Ronson once commanded the turntables.
Today, it’s a Dunkin’ Donuts.