Help Disco (Photo courtesy of Athos)

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	Archive 25	50		2008/08/25, 02:29 pm
	Archive 26	50		2010/01/12, 11:33 am

KKM-
Don't count on it. Balcony (and formerly, Help) rely primarily on tourists as their clients. For most termas, locals make up the bulk of their clients, so demand will stay acceptably high. Since termas can control supply, prices will remain high. If supply starts exceeding demand at Balcony, happy days!

Bwana,

Was being a tad tongue and cheek. Although I sure would love to see the days of truly cheap Terma runs return. Maybe Lula can do something to make the world think he is going to default on loans and it can go back to 3.8/1 like just before he got elected. That would be a good start.

I really miss the days when I went to Brazil 5+ times a year. Been a few years since I could justify the cost anymore.

I'd be happy with 2.5-1 at this point. I'm afraid everything points to the situation getting worse rather than better, so I'm enjoying while the US is still a first world country and Brasil isn't.

Ok, I have not been in Rio for 3 months now, very sad about the closing of help, I feel like am loosing something very close to my heart. But hopefully something better will just pop out, that will fill my heart again. Can anyone explain where is Bar Balcony? I am at lost here.
By the way any advice about getting a 5 year visa, mine expired and I got a 90 day one, really curbing my opportunity to just book a Rio trip over night. My 90 day visa already expired again!
Thanks!

Passed by Help yesterday and it was strange seeing nobody out front in TA and the lights turned off.

The balcony bar was packed by the time I got there around 10:30pm, almost no place to sit, except in the back of the bar where it is just too hot right now to stay. Plenty of girls.... enough variety to meet everyones needs. Unfortunately I did not see too much drama.... I like the show :-)

Angel - the balcony bar is close to the Copacabana Palace Hotel and Leme. If you are coming from Help, you would pass the Copa Hotel to the left...about one more block, by the open plaza. It does not have doors and never closes...

I have not heard of a 90 day visa - are you sure you are not talking about the timeframe you have to enter Brazil after issuance of the visa? That initial 90 day timeframe applies for 5 year visas as well.

Damn , Ill never forget my first time in help. It was great , Balcony is a shithole and cant accomodate the amount of people help could , prices probably wont go down at balcony the girls will want more per job since they will get less clients , and im sure people will pay, plus you all know that logic doesnt work when negotiating , hence the famous "how much for 1 hr ? 50 , ok how much for 2 hours? 200" conversations

Yeah, it will be interesting to see what will happen to the prices. I think the Help girls agree with your assessment of the Balcony Bar...at least one that I spoke to yesterday had the same comment. A real hottie from Sao Paulo. But now the curtain has closed for Help and options are limited. However, I did see the girls struggling to pick up guys. Plus there are a larger amount of Brazilians in there then I remember previously - they certainly will not pay very much. They like to grab and kiss for free whenever they can....lots of talk with little action, which I am sure frustrates the girls. I was bullshitting with one Brazilian guy and he was doing the same with the girls....

The logic of the girls does tend to be twisted - try to charge more when you have less customers, hence you get less customer's. Kind of like an empty restaurant raising prices when they have few customers to make for lost business :-)

LM, you are either issued a 5 year or 90 day, its all up to the consulate. Majority of the time at most consulates you will get a 5 year visa. I think Houston was giving out a lot of 90 day visas a coulpe of years ago.

Another way to find Balcony, look for lifeguard tower 2(posto 2) along the beach. Balcony will be right across the street next to the park.

I went to the Portela Samba School yesterday, but just could not resist visiting the Balcony Bar afterwards - around 1:00am. Absolutely packed - that place is turning into hell for everyone. Because it is so small, the scene is spilling into the street now.... I like to sit and drink, that is getting increasingly more difficult.

Just waiting for the GdP riots to break out around Balcony.

LM, go into La Dolce Vita and give us the lowdown on the operation. I've seen some hot garotas going in there but no one has stated definitively how the operation works. Is it a mini-Help, or more like Franks?

Cat - I checked out La Dolce just for you yesterday, around 2:00am or so. Girls apparently can enter for free, but guys have to pay R$20. I did not pay, but instead asked if I can just go upstairs to check it out first. Good thing I did - about 10 people in there, 4 or so girls.

Assessment so far - not worth the effort, certainly not R$20

It basically boils down to some of the girls in the Balcony Bar trolling La Dolce for a few minutes looking for customers and then returning back to the bar. Ágain, not worth paying any entrance fee when you can get the same exact girl next door a few minutes later. The few that I saw in there were dancing with some guys, so it looked more like they pulled the customers from the Balcony Bar to hang out in La Dolce.

Avoid!

Regarding the people discussing the visa time periods, you need to ask specifically for the five year visa. It costs the same.

The same goes for when you enter Brazil, tell then your length of stay is 3 months. Then they will stamp your visa with the longest possible date that you can stay without another stamp.

You have to later get a stamp to extend a 3 month to 6 months stay. Six months is the limit for any one year. And they go by January 1st, so if you enter Brazil in a new year, it starts all over again.

Oh, and take a side trip to Iguazo Falls and Argentina. Brazil does not inspect your passport upon leaving, so if you are expired, no worries. Then make sure when you come back, a Brazil border guard puts a new 3 month stamp on your visa.

I took the bus and visited my GF's family in Curitiba and Campo Morao. The trip into Argentina from Igauzo I took a taxi. Also, every plane ride I have taken, the Brazilians never looked at my stamp to see if it had expired.

One last picture of Help....for all the sentimentalists.

Oh, it looks far worse than that now. Hopefully Jag will post a few more shots, since he seems to have a mysterious attraction to the demolition site. No, I guess it's probably not all that mysterious. "Jag" and "demolition" are practically synonyms.

Here's another picture from Globo: MUL1541357-5606%2C00.html,http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Rio/0,,MUL1541357-5606,00.html

Try this:

http://g1.globo.com/Noticias/Rio/0,,MUL1541357-5606,00.html

(Message edited by Bwana_dik on April 03, 2010)

The replacement: Museum of Image and Sound. How much more obtuse can it get?

Imagine all the noise to those close apartments during the construction! - Hemp

Yea, but imagine the increase in property values after its completed, compared to what they were in the Help days.

I have to say, it looks really bizarre just stuck in the midst of some traditional boxy apartment buildings.

We can hope that the increase in property values will drive Bob's out.

I think I would trade construction noise from 9:00 AM until 5:00 PM for the noise of a thousand whores, mongers, touts, muggers, etc every night from 10:00 PM until 4:00 AM.

The girls that moved from Help to the Balcony Bar report apartment owners above the bar throwing an occasional water balloon, or other items from their window....presumably due to the noise and frustration. Imagine sleeping with all that noise. Those owners close to the former Help must have thrown a big party after it closed....

5 years ago I lived in an apartment 4 stories above a small bar...the noise at night was horrible. The buildings in Rio carry noise like crazy. I had to turn on the A/C, plus a fan, to drown out some of the noise - and this was just a bar, nothing on the scale of Help or Balcony. I solved that problem by moving....

Does this mean no more hot dog truck at 3:00 am? What the hell is Don gonna eat?

those hot dogs were good!

I miss those chocolates sold occasionally outside Help at TA.....Jag & I would buy them by the dozen when available and give them to everyone at the table.

The hot dog truck can still be found near the old Help location. Whether it's there at 3am I can't say. It's been a long time since Don's been prowling Av. Atlântica at 3am. Where have you been, GCL?

I hear that GCL got so much pussy on his last trip to Brasil, he's still in recovery mode.

Here are a few pictures of Help's demise. I even got a few shots of my rescuers.

Jag

I fucked up. Gotta call Bwana's mom for help.

Jag

The very last photo, which is out of focus, is of the rebar that the idiot in flip flops fell into--ouch!

Jag

Oh yeah, Cat, the renovations are proceeding nicely.

Jag

Like the Phoenix, Help shall rise from the rebar. The "museum" is just a joke. The owners are putting in a new facility: a new bar/restaurant on the ground floor, Help Disco on floors 2-3, a short-time love motel on floors 4-6, and a full-service termas on floors 7-8 with a pool on the roof for termas guests.

This has to be what they're doing. No one would stick a stupid-ass museum in the middle of Copacabana, when all the other big museums are in Centro.

bwana you forgot the carmen miranda museum in the flamengo park,not to far from the art museum that a few years back almost burnt down to the ground(i dont want anyone to get any ideas)but if my memory serves me right both jag and don smoke them big cigars,maybe a bonefire in a couple of years
iggy

Gentlemen,

Yesterday, right after my first death in Rio only minutes into this trip (more about that later), I made my way over to the former HELP site to see what was going on. Prior to going over there, I put on my blazer to look more official and hopefully pass for one of the American architects who designed the Light and Sound Museum.

Luckily for me, the guard at the gate was slightly more challenged than I am, so I passed by with ease. That is until I asked for a hard hat that was mandatory on site. He refused to give me one and I suspected one of two things. Either he didn't like me and wanted me to get injured, or he figured there was't anything valuable in my head to injure. Either way, I felt insulted until I saw my buddy, Pedro, from the demo squad walking towards me.

As we all know, when they closed HELP and immediately cleared the site, it was because they wanted to open the new museum sometime in 2012. Then, like everything in Brazil, nothing happened for over a year. About six weeks ago, a small crew went to work and from what I saw yesterday, they sat around doing nothing. Sure, they moved around a little sand, but nothing substantive.

When I pointed this out to Pedro, he informed me that the official opening date was moved to coincide with the 2014 World Cup Games. At their typically Brazilian feverish pace of construction, perhaps the 2016 Olympic Game is a more reasonable target.

Jag

The following information is for reference purposes only as Help Disco no longer exists.

Help Disco is mentioned in 2008/09 Mexidan - Intelligence Report: Rio de Janeiro - August 2008

January 6th 2010 was the last day of the HELP Discoteca. What a change that closure brought.

(Message edited by copperfieldkid on January 12, 2012)