If you don’t know who the North Brooklyn Democratic District Leader is at this point, well, then you probably haven’t attended too many Community Board 1 meetings, and it’s also safe to say that you’re definitely not a member of the Brooklyn Young Democrats. But if you live in or around Greenpoint or Williamsburg and care to be involved in the future of the Democratic Party or the Progressive movement, rest assured there are easier ways to get to know Nick Rizzo than crashing a tedious land-use committee hearing.
For one, you could always convene with Rizzo on the Lower East Side, where you’ll find him working behind the bar at 151. It was clearly a slow night when I stopped by last week (he’d just finished doing the glamorous work of juicing some oranges), so Rizzo had some time to chat about Bernie Sanders, Elena Ferrante, and a rather awkward encounter at Vito Lopez’s wake, among other things.
“Everyone here is a musician, except me,” Rizzo explained, pointing around to the other employees at 151. And yeah, now that he’d said so, it was kind of strange to see an elected official moonlighting at a bar. The fact that Brooklyn’s 42 Democratic Party district leaders are unpaid might have something to do with it, but it’s also because Rizzo, in many ways, isn’t your typical politician.
Since his election in 2014 was met with headlines like “Cool Running: Bearded, Tattooed Bartender Vies to Run W’Burg Politics,” Rizzo has lived up to the hype by proving that he’s Brooklyn’s ultimate Millennial politician. And that’s not only because last spring he tweeted out an account of getting punched in the face at Tommy’s Tavern in Greenpoint after the owner grabbed a female employee and Rizzo stepped in to defend her. (“He left in handcuffs. It was fucking awesome,” Rizzo tweeted, subsequently posting a selfie showing off his black eye.) Policy-wise, Rizzo also shares some concerns with the Brooklyn hipster constituency (the security of nightlife, for one), and like many liberal-minded people of our generation, he also cares a great deal about issues of equality (e.g. affordable housing) and is frustrated with (pardon the overused word) the establishment.
In short, Rizzo is reform-minded (even if he’s trying not to use the term “reform” so much these days) and says he’s determined to shake up old-school Brooklyn Democratic machine politics, having campaigned on a platform that included greater transparency and anti-corruption. Rizzo may not have much power in his current position, but he has set his sights on political ambitions way up the ladder. No doubt he’s still figuring out how exactly he’s going to get there (case in point: his Twitter profile reads, rather ambiguously, “ex(?)-journalist“). For now, Rizzo might be the most accessible politician out there, and I strongly suggest you pick his brain before he gets too busy for minor chit-chat.
I’ve been following politics really, obsessively, closely since I was 10, so that’s 20 years now. I barely see any possibility of Trump winning. But it’s possible. Anything’s possible.
This seems fairly plausible: if Trump wins the nomination, and a decent chunk of Republican elected officials and Republican establishment figures distance themselves from him, or take a walk on this election, possibly run a third-party candidate, whatever– then Trump loses, what’s the narrative for all these people voting for Trump? It’s not going to be, ‘Oh, we’re sorry we were so crazy, we’re going to learn from that and not be crazy anymore.’ Instead, the narrative will be, one, the establishment stabbed us in the back and, two, once again, we nominated an insufficiently conservative figure. It’s actually kind of tricky where Trump stands on gay rights and abortion. So that means that they’re not going to learn, and they’re just going to nominate Ted Cruz next time or something.
It’s really, really important to me that Reform not just be a white movement. That’s one of the reasons why I almost never use the word “reform” anymore, and if we’re going to move forward, and we are, we have to do this as a multiethnic thing. And one thing that people don’t think about with City politicians, that makes it a little bit harder for them to reach across racial divides, is that because of the Voting Rights Act, politicians are almost always the same color as the district they represent.
Actually, I showed up for Vito’s wake. I was the only person from my side who showed up, and it was an old, Italian-American funeral parlor in East Williamsburg. I was told it would be the respectful thing to do, because we served on the Executive Committee of the Democratic Party together in Brooklyn. I show up there and I go up to his main protege, Andy Marte and I’m like, ‘Andy, I’m so sorry for your loss.’ [Rizzo reaches out his hand.] And he just stares at my hand. That’s the only time anyone’s ever refused to shake my hand. So I look over [toward the coffin] and say, ‘Yup, definitely dead.’
But, no, seriously– this is an individual, and I may have spent every week for a six-year period thinking, ‘This guy is my enemy,’ but he’s a person too, and he had a family, and friends, and people who miss him and all this shit. But [the funeral] was just crazy.
So that night, after it was over, I was here [working at 151]. I had my sleeves rolled up and I was in a black tie and suit, and at the end of the night the bar back from our sister bar, who I’d never met before, but who had a neck tattoo and all this stuff, he was giving me crap about bartending in a suit or whatever. And I was like, look, ‘I stared my enemy dead in the face today, you think I give a fuck about you?! I don’t even remember your name, bro!’ So, yeah, that was one of the crazier things that’s happened to me in the last six months.
And yet the exit polls showed that among people under 25, 85 percent of them voted for Bernie because it turns out Millennials– and Generation Z it appears even more– are just really radical. Pretty much. They’re not afraid of the word “socialism.”
Look, I recognize that everyone with political experience, pretty much, is supporting Hillary. There are two other people elected in Brooklyn, besides me, who support Bernie, and one of them is also a dude with a beard and arm tattoos– Rafael Espinal from Bushwick, the Councilman.
Maybe most politicians don’t read a lot of books, but all the politicians I just named are really good dancers, especially Antonio Reynoso. I mean, all these guys are amazing dancers.
Politicians pay a lot of lip service to service workers. SEIU [Service Employees International Union] is the most important union in the city. But, like, how many of us are service workers? I’m a fuckin’ service worker. I’m in service. You know, I come from an upper-middle-class background, but when I watch Downton Abbey, I identify with downstairs. And I think that’s part of the reason why I’m trying to do this, I’m trying to take some of the preppy stink off me. I will say though, having done both, it is harder to get a bartending job in this city than it is to get elected. Way more people are trying [to be bartenders].
I’m still learning, and I’m totally fascinated by it. I can’t be a journalist anymore because I have ‘Democratic Party’ after my name. I don’t really want to work for another politician so I can preserve my independence. I’m several years away from getting an elected position that pays. So, what’s a cool job if you don’t need to worry about a retirement plan? Bartending. That was the original thought. God knows I’ve got 10,000 hours of experience sitting on the other side of the bar.
A lot people have certain ideas about what a bartender is, or they’re looking for certain things. I’m exceptionally short for a male bartender. I’m also quite young. We’re all about 30 here, but generally if you find a dude in his mid-20s or younger who’s bar tending, he’s either been working in restaurants since he was 14, or he’s exceptionally good-looking, or both. Normally both.
And this has been challenging for me– I’m a very solicitous person, but as a bartender you need to cultivate this aura of leaning back, taking things slowly, this aura of aloofness. I’m very bad at that.
I can’t tell you how much I prefer bartending to being a waiter– it’s night and day. As a waiter you’re bending over to talk to people, you’re not their social equal. A bartender is looking at you, eye-to-eye. The bartender has power over you. If the bartender doesn’t want to serve you, you’re not getting fucking served.
Also, and no one talks about this– nowadays, [bars and restaurants] are incredibly racially segregated. Almost every nightlife establishment employs black, white, and Latino employees, they just do different things. A huge percentage of barbacks are Latino, most bouncers are black, but how many black bartenders do you see? I can name, like, three and one is Luke Cage from [the Marvel comic/ Netflix series] Jessica Jones.
I have this theory about tipping. People tip not really based on quality of service or how much they think the person needs it, or anything like that, at all. Basically, the more that you think the person is like you, the more you tip. With bartenders, you’ll actually tip them quite highly. They use to call bartenders the aristocracy of the working class, and they’re certainly he aristocracy of the serving industry. Whereas, you know, I work a hell of a lot less hard than someone working delivery. And those guys get routinely stiffed, constantly. Or at the very least, are almost never tipped at the same rate we are, it’s a much lower percentage. And no, people don’t feel bad about it. Why? Because they’re the “other.”
I lived on the Lower East Side from 2005 to 2008, and when I moved to Greenpoint back in 2008, I said to myself– the next five years of Williamsburg are going to look like the last five have on the Lower East Side. Greenpoint is going to gentrify 80 percent of the way there and then stop, because it will be saved by the shittiness of the G train. I think all of that was very prescient, frankly. But one thing that I’m trying to work for, in Greenpoint at least– I think the horse is out of the barn in Williamsburg– is keeping nightlife cool. We’ve seen this whole boom-and-bust cycle that certain neighborhoods go through with their nightlife. The Meatpacking District is a good example. And the secret to maintaing a good nightlife scene, which you can attain through policy, is limiting large venues.
Most of your douche magnets hold many hundreds of people, so you have to be very careful about what sort of business operators you give those large licenses to. Manhattan Community Board 3, I think, has really screwed up. They’re trying to enforce a blanket moratorium, which means they can’t discriminate between quality operators and scumbag operators. The SLA, as far as I can tell, really doesn’t care. So [CB3] has lost their veto point. I think CB1 in Brooklyn does a much better job, especially outside of the Bedford core, of trying to limit the sorts of new licenses that go in elsewhere. It’s not a completely closed door at all, and it shouldn’t be, because if you do that you’re screwed. But it’s trying to pick and choose who’s going to run a quality establishment and who’s not.
This interview has been condensed for space and edited for clarity.