Dancers could take home $700 on a good night, $200 if the clientele was in a stingier mood at this 500-person-capacity club sandwiched into an industrial block. The women paid $80 to dance — onstage, in the club, in V.I.P. areas — and most spent hundreds more on nails, makeup, outfits, shoes or body augmentation. Some coaxed their followers to the club via Instagram for an in-the-flesh exchange of grinding or twerking or a passing glance of desire. The men and women who came — including, on this particular night, the Brooklyn rappers 6ix9ine and Casanova — could trade big bills for stacks of singles. It was a shower-style club: Making it rain was the point of the party. Moving through the crowd, women collected their tips in satchels. Though many relied on Insta-star status (Cardi B is a Lust alum), there were still dancers who worked the pole with old-school tricks like the helicopter, in which one dancer propels herself around the pole, parallel to the floor and 10 feet above it, while another dancer stands on top of her, surfing. “A lost art form,” the manager, Frank Carniglia, said.

“There are plenty of clientele who are comfortable with spending 100, 200 dollars in singles,” said the manager, Frank Carniglia. Philip Montgomery for The New York Times