How New York City Kids Do Sweet Sixteen

by Chiara Atik · January 4, 2010

Why do the girls in the picture at left have blurred out faces? It's because they're teenagers, in case their barely-there mini dresses, blown out hair, high heels, and PRESENCE AT A NEW YORK NIGHTCLUB led you to believe otherwise.

Kids these days, eh? In my day, a killer sweet sixteen meant your mom tracking down the guy who DJ'd that one kid's bar mitzvah and played The Electric Slide an appropriate amount of times. These days, New York City kids are demanding a rented out nightclub, a stripper or two, a star of a prime time television show (in this case, little Mark Indelicato from Ugly Betty), a DJ who does, like, REAL parties, and of course, a photographer to document the whole thing.

It's no joke when people say that city kids are different. The parties we've seen for the under 18 set as of late make MTV's Sweet Sixteen series seem dated, and any party Blair Waldorf has hosted in her UES apartment seem lame. NYC Prep's Camille threw a party that made headlines, and little Serena Bancroft, still only 13, is poised to throw some pretty elaborate parties herself. (If anyone is capable of renting The Boom Boom Room for a 15th birthday party, it's Serena.) Good luck keeping up with that, you unfortunate teens forced to survive adolescence in other parts of the country.

There is however, one ray of light in all this, one shining beacon of commonality: