Night Class A Downtown Memoir

The playground of the rich and the beautiful, downtown New York's nightlife spectacles and power of self-invention incubated pop icons from Andy Warhol to Lady Gaga. NYU sociologist Victor P. Corona sought a new education, where night classes held in galleries, nightclubs, bars, apartments, stoops, and all-night diners taught him about love, loss, and the living possibilities of identity. Transforming himself from dowdy professor to glitzy clubgoer, Victor immerses himself among downtown's dazzling tribes of artists and performers hungry for fame.

Night Class: A Downtown Memoir investigates the glamour of New York nightlife. In interviews and outings with clubland revelers and influencers, including Party Monster and convicted killer Michael Alig, Night Class exposes downtown's perilous trappings of drugs, ambition, and power. From closeted, undocumented Mexican boy to Ivy League graduate to nightlife writer, Corona shares in Night Class the thrill and tragedy of downtown and how dramatically identities can change.

Victor P. Corona, Ph.D., is a sociologist at New York University, having previously taught at Columbia University, Hofstra University, and the Fashion Institute of Technology. Victor has been featured in the New York Times, New York Post, Glamour, Town and Country, BlackBook, Daily Beast, and Washington Post, among other publications. He was profiled in The Times of London and Columbia’s student magazine The Eye as “A Professor of Nightlife.” Victor appears in the documentary film Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig, winner of the 2015 Manhattan Film Festival. His research has been published in scholarly journals like Theory, Culture and Society and Organization, among others. His Journal of Popular Culture article on Lady Gaga is the first peer-reviewed academic article published on the pop star. He has also written for VICE, New York Art Beat, and PopMatters. Born in Mexico City, Victor grew up in the New York suburb of White Plains. He now lives in Harlem.