Elysia:
Boston Athenaeum - http://www.bostonathenaeum.org
The
Rack: Divine Comedy, Lansdown Street, Boston MA
Divine Comedy is
an upscale club located in downtown Boston. It is noted for catering to exclusive
tastes and appetites and serves as both a dance club and a more sedate lounge
for those seeking quieter places. The exterior
facade of the club is normal
Boston brownstone, with a sign done in curly italian bastarde calligraphy of deep
red neon that reads "Divine Comedy" over a venetian plaster backdrop.
The two door posts to the entrance are doric style columns, one topped with angels,
the other with demons and grotesqueries.
The main floor of the club is the most "dance floor" like atmosphere. A large central dance floor and bar are bordered with gilt railings and floored in slick black marble tiles. The area behind the bar is painted with a fresco of Dante emerging from the woods and wrestling with the three beasts upon the mountain - the she-wolf, the lion, and the leopard.
This floor is the most obscure and strangely lit, going from flashing modern lights to flickering electric torch light depending on the room. The side rooms branching off from the main dance floor are seven in number, one for each deadly sin and decorated to suit. These areas are used for socializing, drinking, and dining as the need may be.
Envy is done in several shades of green, rich fabrics to suit and an almost intensely over-complicated set of chairs, tables, and sitting areas that is reminiscent of the height of French Louis XIV with intricate carving and lines. The furniture is, however, all painted black instead of gilded. One wall is set with televisions playing a constant stream of updated imagery of popular stars, expensive and exotic locales, and the newest technology.
Wrath is a more punk-street style with bricked walls (one of which patrons are fully encouraged to vandalize though not break), industrial steel beams and columns, and chain link fence. Chains decorate and criss cross from the ceiling and down columns, usable in dancing and dramatic in effect.
Sloth is almost middle-eastern in style, though older kindred will recognize the late renaissance Italian affect of copying mediterranean design and comfort. The feel here is almost like an opium den with soft, diffuse lighting and smoke-colored walls in warm colors. Sumptuous cushions, soft fabrics, lounging couches, and employees running drink and food so patrons never have to leave the comfort of their chairs.
Gluttony is the most prominant "eating" spot in the place, laid out with large banquet tables and a rotating menu of delicacies, tapas style appetizers, etc. Admittance to this room costs additionally but given the way your meal can be taken in a chaise lounge it's become quite an "in" place to dine on occasion.
Lust is cast in shades of red and gold - anyone familiar with venice at the height of the courtesans will recognize the setting of a venetian salon - the walls frescoed with images of copulation, sex both tender and not, and classic roman imagery of entwined couples. Shadowed and sometimes entirely darkened nooks lend couples privacy and scantily clad waiters and waitresses - while not on sale themselves - lend to the atmosphere. It's important to note that no one here is lewdly dressed so much as tantalizingly attired in the old addage of "it's not what you show but what you don't"
Pride is next store, done in modern lines, simple and clean, painted in stark black and white and the walls literally lined with mirrors. The room is so full of reflecting surfaces it can be difficult to find ones way out on occasion. One wall features empty silver-gilt frames on the mirrors, as if each passing patron had a portrait hanging.
Greed is also a more modern room. Everything here is done to excess. Drinks are doubled in size as are any food portions ordered. Chairs are over-sized and over-stuffed, even the staff works in tandem. The room is gold from top to bottom. Gold floor, gold furniture, gilded ceiling tiles, you name it, it's gold. Various bits of european and american currency are lacquered into the floor itself.
Outside
of the seven rooms in "purgatory" a stairway descends down into "Hell."
As one descends, gargoyle and grotesque statues line the stairway. Less dungeon
and more salon, the color scheme in hell is again in the reds and oranges. A crazy
latticework of black painting on the walls depicts demons and monstrosities. While
there is a small sitting and gathering area here, there is also a series of private
meetings rooms used by the kindred of the city and for exclusive
clientele
who wish to indulge in pleasures that are not suitable for upper levels - the
rooms are let by invitiation and admittance only to avoid any trouble. A side
area is reserved for dancing, the music here much darker and more hard-core than
the upper level.
A second staircase on the mid-level leads up to heaven. As with hell, the statue's here depict your direction, transforming from the simple columns into angels that are more divine than they are cherubim. These are heroic looking angels, not cupids with diapers. The upper level is done in pale shades of cream and light gold, the walls filled with italian style frescos of botticelli's angels and some images that might depict copies of the sistine chapel - all extremely well done. Any patrons ascending here on non-kindred nights find respite from the noise of below, comfortable seating and light food and drinks.
