Calling it a club is a stretch, though dancing is encouraged.
There is a main bar on the first floor and a smaller one in the “semiprivate” pint-size mezzanine. On a quickly transforming street lined with dive bars, 99-cent stores and trendy restaurants, Lovegun occupies a narrow two-level space. Maisani’s social reputation (his partner is Anderson Cooper) has enough pull to draw Manhattanites to an eastern stretch of Williamsburg that has so far escaped the glass-box gentrification of the waterfront. Since opening in September, Lovegun has provided locals with a successor to the shuttered Sugarland and an up-tempo alternative to nearby Metropolitan. Maisani set his sights on Brooklyn, giving the gay night-life circuit in Williamsburg a much-needed shot in the arm with Lovegun. After opening bars in the East Village (Eastern Bloc, Bedlam) and, more recently, the crowded Hell’s Kitchen fray (Atlas Social Club), Mr. If Grindr killed the gay bar, no one told Benjamin Maisani.
