Denizens and visitors alike know that the bars and clubs in New York are second to none, but the city’s reputation really lives up to the hype in the high-end version of this vast nightlife scene, a gilt-edged world that most people only read about or see in movies – the NYC of luxury, wealth, fame, and excess.

From the lavish Meatpacking District clubs and their multimillion-dollar designs to the stunning rooftop bars and lounges in Chelsea and exclusive underground hideaways in Nolita, there’s no end to the guest-list playgrounds where Wall Street millionaires, A-list celebrities, trust-fund kids, and socialites can hold court over bottomless bottles of Veuve and Grey Goose, barely flinching at the five-figure bill at the end of the night.

The city is nothing if not versatile, however, and those willing to brave the long lines and maybe grease the door guy will find plenty of opportunities to buy twenty-dollar drinks, flaunt their designer duds, and toast the good life in the more attainable upscale bars and clubs that don’t require a famous name just to get in.

What keeps these spendthrift partygoers truly stimulated, though, is the constant flow of new venues to check out and new crowds to impress, as nightlife impresarios try to one-up each other with the next best thing – resulting in a revolving door of clubs and lounges that keeps the in-crowd on its toes.

Besides all the glitzy venues that make up the high-end nightlife scene, New York is also known for its vast array of bars and clubs that cater to the city’s melting pot of personalities, from counterculture, hipper-than-thou, alternative, and creative types to young professionals, preppy college kids, sports fans, and blue-collar Joes who live and breathe New York’s incredible energy.

Over in Chinatown and the East Village, hip, alternative trendsetters head to hole-in-the-wall bars, dirty dives, DIY upstarts, and sweaty dance dens to down cheap beer, while New York’s sports culture is well represented by hundreds of bars and pubs all over the city where fun-loving, more mainstream crowds show up to watch the Yankees, Jets, Knicks, and countless other teams over a few friendly brews.

And to top it all off, a bevy of accessible singles haunts dot Murray Hill and the Village around the NYU campus, where college kids and young professionals come together for all-night booze fests and barhopping adventures often commemorated by photo-booth pictures that no one remembers taking...read less