A few years ago, when we lived in the converted factory on Nameless Alley between Herzl and Abulafia streets, it seemed that the nightclub would go on forever. Every Thursday and Friday night, it was packed solid with sparkly-clad teenagers, strutting their stuff like glittery peacocks to Rihanna and Shakira. On weekday evenings, it would frequently hire itself out as a venue for a Bat Mitzvah, something that amused me since in the UK the ceremony takes place in a synagogue, not a seedy nightclub. Not that the girls were reading from the Torah in the club, it was just an excuse for a party of course. On Bat Mitzvah nights, hordes of over-dressed tweens would dominate Nameless Alley, all trying desperately to appear sophisticated, once or twice asking my boyfriend if he had a spare cigarette as we walked to our ‘apartment’. Enchante. The club would play the latest tweenybop hits and a few Mizrahit classics too. Once, Nameless Alley was taken over for an entire week by an international GLBT meeting at the club. I came home one evening to find a bunch of serious-looking German transexual women sitting on my doorstep. They were very cool and explained about the event and how they were sleeping on the floor of the club.

At first, the club was known as Queens, then later it became the teenybop Silver Bar, and after we moved it changed hands again and became a Gothic/ Heavy Metal venue called the Motor Rock Bar.

Today, though, it looks like the club has finally left the building. A glance through the barred window shows just a sad pile rubble inside and the top floor appears to be an apartment with a roof garden. That’s a common thing in this part of town, clubs closing down – the area is slated for renovation, and the club owners can’t renew their licenses so they move elsewhere to some other twilight zone. In Nameless Alley, where there once was an illegal bingo joint there is now an office with graphic designers and illustrators. It’s a good thing.