praetor
10-27-2009, 02:34 PM
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Rio nightclub closure leaves prostitutes Helpless
Notorious venue to make way for museum in city clean-up ahead of World Cup, raising concerns over its 2,000 patron prostitutes
* Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 August 2009 16.14 BST
* Article history
For decades it has been one of Rio de Janeiro's most notorious nightspots, a neon-lit colossus at the heart of Copacabana beach renowned as a meeting point for wealthy, sunburned tourists and scantily clad prostitutes.
After 25 years of late nights and throbbing hangovers, the dancefloor of the Help discotheque is set to host its last party on Friday 28 August, as the government moves to clean up the city before Brazil hosts the 2014 World Cup.
Rio's governor, Sergio Cabral, has unveiled a R$65m (£21m) plan to bulldoze the nightclub and replace it with a music-themed museum designed by the US architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the same company that gave a facelift to New York's Lincoln Centre.
Cabral, who is campaigning to bring the 2016 Olympics to Rio, says the museum is part of a drive to improve living conditions in the city, which has also introduced pioneering policing initiatives in several slums including the City of God favela made famous by Fernando Meirelles's film.
News of Help's imminent closure has gone down badly among the estimated 2,000 freelance prostitutes who use the club for business, often to support their families. "We only use the club to meet clients. This is not a crime. All we do here is dance and have fun," Patricia Alcantara, 30, told the Rio newspaper O Dia. "With the closure of Help we will have to go on to the streets."
Thaddeus Blanchette, a north American anthropologist who has written extensively on the club, said closing it would not reduce levels of sex tourism but would make the prostitutes' lives "more complicated and, ultimately, dangerous".
He said: "What will happen is that many of the women who are currently 'freelancers' and use Help will be pushed to accept, to one degree or another, pimps as they will have to work the old traditional venues or the infinitely more dangerous street scene. This, of course, puts them and tourists more at risk for crime and violence."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/rio-help-nightclub-closure
Rio nightclub closure leaves prostitutes Helpless
Notorious venue to make way for museum in city clean-up ahead of World Cup, raising concerns over its 2,000 patron prostitutes
* Tom Phillips in Rio de Janeiro
* guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 August 2009 16.14 BST
* Article history
For decades it has been one of Rio de Janeiro's most notorious nightspots, a neon-lit colossus at the heart of Copacabana beach renowned as a meeting point for wealthy, sunburned tourists and scantily clad prostitutes.
After 25 years of late nights and throbbing hangovers, the dancefloor of the Help discotheque is set to host its last party on Friday 28 August, as the government moves to clean up the city before Brazil hosts the 2014 World Cup.
Rio's governor, Sergio Cabral, has unveiled a R$65m (£21m) plan to bulldoze the nightclub and replace it with a music-themed museum designed by the US architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro, the same company that gave a facelift to New York's Lincoln Centre.
Cabral, who is campaigning to bring the 2016 Olympics to Rio, says the museum is part of a drive to improve living conditions in the city, which has also introduced pioneering policing initiatives in several slums including the City of God favela made famous by Fernando Meirelles's film.
News of Help's imminent closure has gone down badly among the estimated 2,000 freelance prostitutes who use the club for business, often to support their families. "We only use the club to meet clients. This is not a crime. All we do here is dance and have fun," Patricia Alcantara, 30, told the Rio newspaper O Dia. "With the closure of Help we will have to go on to the streets."
Thaddeus Blanchette, a north American anthropologist who has written extensively on the club, said closing it would not reduce levels of sex tourism but would make the prostitutes' lives "more complicated and, ultimately, dangerous".
He said: "What will happen is that many of the women who are currently 'freelancers' and use Help will be pushed to accept, to one degree or another, pimps as they will have to work the old traditional venues or the infinitely more dangerous street scene. This, of course, puts them and tourists more at risk for crime and violence."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/aug/17/rio-help-nightclub-closure