Spotlighting The Clubs There's A Lot More Life In The City's Nights This Time Of Year. And Some Of The Old Places Are Brand-new Spaces Ready To Party.

The weather's getting hotter. The outfits are getting skimpier. Clunky boots and concealing sweaters have made way for sandals and short skirts. Girls are shaving their legs again (ouch!), guys are . . . well, they're probably not doing anything different.

Nevertheless, now that we've all got the look, let's consider where to show it off. Let's take a look at what's new in city clubland.

The first thing you will notice: Everything old is new again.

Hot '70s nostalgia club Polly Esther's used to be the gentlemen's club called Tiffany's. Evolution used to be Asylum. Swanky night spot Deluxe used to be jazz club Zanzibar Blue; Shampoo used to be Milkbar, and the Baja Beach Club, packing 'em in on Delaware Avenue, has had so many previous incarnations that we won't even try to list them here.

What should this tell you? That the club world is a transient place. This summer's hot spot might not be around next summer (or even next week - witness the near-instantaneous demise of Jack Rabbit Slim's, and the blues club, and the Haven, which it contained).

The second thing you'll notice: options, and a lot of them. And not just options among the clubs, but options within them. Clubs will have one, two, three dance floors, all playing different types of music, with a bar or two apiece. Don't like that heavy house or acid jazz? Club owners are hoping that you won't leave, but will choose instead to just go up, or down, a flight of stairs, and hear something different.

So now, without further ado, some of what's noteworthy on the club scene in the summer of '97.

Baja Beach Club. It was Saturday night, almost closing time, the Flyers had been humiliated - and nobody amid the chaotic spill of scantily-clads crammed onto the dance floors and twisting decks beside the big, fake volcano at Baja seemed to know, or care.

This is a big, loud, raunchy place, where the beer servers wear eyepatch-sized bikinis, the guys behind the bars write their names on their bare chests with grease paint, most of the crowd is under 30, and one of the most popular rum drinks is served in a 64-ounce bucket. (The bucket comes emblazoned with the Top 10 Reasons to ``Suck It From a Bucket.'' Reason No. 10: ``You can tell the cops you only had one drink.'') Food choices are greasy and greasier . . . slices of pizza, cheesesteaks, things like that.